Thread: Lawmakers defeat proposal restricting day laborers

March 21, 2007, 6:37AM
Lawmakers defeat proposal restricting day laborers

By FRANK ELTMAN
Associated Press

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — Lawmakers in an eastern Long Island county where illegal immigration has been an issue for nearly a decade defeated a bill Tuesday that would have banned people seeking day work from congregating on public roads.

Almost 50 people testified about the measure before Suffolk County legislators turned it down 10-6, with one legislator absent and another abstaining.

The sponsor, Suffolk County Legislator Jack Eddington, said his aim was improving public safety and preventing accidents, but he conceded he also wanted the day laborers — largely suspected of being in the country illegally — to go elsewhere.

"This is not a black and white or Hispanic issue," he said of critics accusing him of racism. "These young men are being exploited. They have no safety precautions."

Opponents argue the proposal is an attempt to criminalize "standing while Latino."

Christina Iturralde, an attorney with the New York-based Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which advocates for the civil rights of Hispanics, had predicted that the measure, if passed, would not withstand legal challenges if it were passed.

"The right of people to seek work in public spaces is a crucial part of our civil society," she said.

Suffolk County has been drawing day laborers from Mexico and Central America over the past decade. County Executive Steve Levy estimated that 40,000 of the county's 1.5 million residents are illegal immigrants.

As they do elsewhere in the country, dozens of men congregate on street corners in certain Suffolk County neighborhoods waiting for contractors to hire them at day rates to perform landscaping, painting, construction and other manual labor.

"Today's sweatshops are the restaurants for the middle class, the lawns that need to be cut, the cars that need to be washed, the kids that need to be taken care of," said the Rev. Alan Ramirez, a longtime advocate for day laborers.

In 2000, two men lured a pair of Mexican day laborers to an abandoned warehouse with a promise of work and then beat them in what prosecutors said was a racially motivated attack. In 2003, teenagers set a fire that destroyed a Mexican family's home; no one was injured.

Today's sweatshops are the restaurants for the middle class, the lawns that need to be cut, the cars that need to be washed, the kids that need to be taken care of," said the Rev. Alan Ramirez, a longtime advocate for day laborers.

I don't think there is any activist here who has propensities for any of the activities described. Perhaps imbeciles like McCain, Kennedy, Pelosi , and Flake, and Gutierrez are the real beneficiaries/employers of this type of "sweatshop"?1?

This is a sad day for New York.