Immigration control group questions McDonald's hiring practices

HARTFORD, Conn. --A group that wants stronger immigration controls is causing controversy with a study that claims McDonald's disproportionately hires Hispanic workers in Connecticut.

Topics: McDonalds, Illegal Immigration, workers, NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, jobs, illegal labor, Immigrants, Americans, Diseases and biohazards

9/29/2005
Boston Globe

State officials have declined to launch an investigation despite demands from Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Control.

And Fernando Betancourt, state commissioner for Latino and Puerto Rican affairs, said he finds it offensive that anyone would go to such lengths to monitor hiring.

"This sounds to me more like systematic persecution," he said.

Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Control held its first meeting in Danbury as tension over immigration mounted there earlier this year.

It has since held meetings around the state.

Members observed workers at 152 McDonald's around the state from April through November.

They found that people they identified as Hispanic accounted for 87 percent of employees in Fairfield County and 64 percent of employees in New Haven County.

Peter Goselin, an immigration activist and member of the state chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, challenged the study, saying that participants could not determine workers' ethnicity or immigration status by merely observing them.

Paul Streitz, co-founder of Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Control, said he believes the findings are evidence that Hispanic immigrants -- legal and illegal -- are displacing other McDonald's workers.

"This is to me occupational displacement -- all of a sudden, in places like Bridgeport and New Haven and Stamford, there aren't any African-Americans working there like there used to be? What's happened?" he said.

Streitz asked Gov. M. Jodi Rell and state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to investigate. Blumenthal said he has seen the report but isn't planning to pursue it.

"At this point, we question its reliability and relevance," he said. "At most the claim is that a disproportionate number of Hispanics work at particular locations, but there's no claim that any other racial, religious or ethnic group has been disfavored or turned away because of discrimination."

Hispanics account for more than 10 percent of Connecticut's population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Officials at Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday. Many McDonald's restaurants are owned by franchisees, who do their own hiring.

A press conference Streitz held at the West Hartford Public Library on Wednesday drew Goselin, three reporters, and a man who hurled a cream pie at Streitz and then ran away.

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