Thread: NYT continues to keep giving -Day Laborers’ Rights

Originally Posted by bquasius

Accuse me of playing the race card all you want, but read the decision. The facts because they don't support the town's assertion they were just enforcing the law against people who were ciminals and bothered others. Some of the problems the town cited didn't even happen at the day hiring site, or happened at night after the day laborers left.

The evidence of discrimination is there in the decision and the various exhibits and briefs. There was an aggressive campaign of selective enforcement against individuals who appeared to be from one particular ethnic or racial group. The judge concluded that the town's actions at least partly based upon racism.

The laws being "enforced" were mostly traffic and parking regulations. Soliciting for work in public is not illegal in Mamaroneck or most of the U.S. for that matter. If it were, surely all the Mamaroneck day laborers would have thousands of dollars in fines and quickly out of business because they were there every day trying to earn a living.

Laws were being aggressively enforced against Latinos, both day laborers and other Latinos who just happened to be there, and that weren't being enforced against whites. Contractors were aggressively ticketed if it appeared they wanted to hire a day worker, while other trucks that blocked traffic, other vehicles parked in no parking zones, and non-Latinos who stopped to pick up kids from school, etc. were ignored.

One Latino, who was not a day laborer, sat down on a public park bench to enjoy his breakfast before reporting to his regular job, and was promptly threatened with a $200 fine for loitering if he didn't leave immediately. Now tell me, what's wrong with a law abiding Latino enjoying his breakfast in a public park? Even if the Latino turned out to be an illegal immigrant he's entitled to the presumption of innocence unless there's probable cause he was breaking the law. I doubt there's a law against enjoying one's breakfast in a park.

The town has the right to enforce its laws, but not in an aggressive selective manner that targets a group of residents of a particular ethnicity or racial make-up.

And by the way, it came out at the trial that none of the day workers had been ticketed or arrested, just threatened many times. One was detained in a police car for two hours without being charged with anything, where he was allegedly told to go back to whatever country he came from. Plenty of contractors and Latino passers-by were ticketed for minor infractions that were overlooked in others who weren't latinos or were in trucks not trying to hire day workers. Now that's selective targeted enforcement.

It was the town officials played the race card, calling the day laborers "locusts" among other derogatory comments, politicians were pandering to anti-Latino sentiment. The judge correctly determined that racial discrimination was part in the town's actions.

Do you have links to all the stuff you are saying?

http://www.prldef.org/Press/News%20Stor ... 0Times.htm

Two years ago, the Hispanic Resource Center in Mamaroneck proposed building a hiring site on a piece of village-owned land near Interstate 95, but residents objected, saying it would clog traffic on an already busy strip. Instead, village officials soon decided to formally designate the parking lot as a sanctioned hiring spot. On warm days, as many as 200 men converged at the park, coming from across Westchester County and from as far south as the Bronx.

Residents charged that the workers urinated in public, defecated, fought with one another, littered and slept in the park overnight. Parents bringing children to a nearby day-care center told the police that the men’s presence made them feel uneasy, and a developer of luxury condominiums being built across from the park urged officials to make the laborers go elsewhere.

Would you let your wife drive your kids by a place like that? Would you want your kids at day care near a place like that?

Why don't these people have normal jobs?? Is is because they are Latino? I doubt it, that would be illegal. Is it because a lot of employers now require drug testing? Or maybe its because some employers do criminal background checks and won't hire people with certain criminal convictions? Or is it possible that they simply can't get normal jobs because they are in the country illegally?

Latino or not, illegal or not, this town sounds like it has a problem with these people.

Testimony for two of the plaintiffs had to be postponed because they were working when they were scheduled to be in court. “What choice to I have?” asked one of those plaintiffs, a 24-year-old man from Guatemala. “I have a family to support at home, and I still have to pay my rent.”

bquasius,

I've stayed out of these conversations of yours up until now, and I'd like to put in my 2 cents.

While I agree with you that legal immigrants should not be harassed, I think that you are missing the underlying and overriding cause of their harassment.

Many legal Latino immigrants not only condone illegal immigration, but facilitate and support it. Every legal Latino has the moral obligation to report illegal aliens, but very few, if any, ever do. This seems to be an instance of ethnicity over citizenship, and is tearing away the protections that legality is supposed to afford.

You are going to have to come to terms with the rising anger of American citizens and choose which side you will support. By not actively denouncing illegal aliens for what they are, wage thieves and law-breakers, you tacitly endorse the very actions that cause the discrimination that you so eloquently oppose.

I have Mexican-American family members, who've been citizens for multiple generations, that espouse the Aztlan-Reconquista philosophy. They make me sick, but what's even worse is they make me suspicious of ALL Mexicans, and consequently all Latinos.

Understand, over 98% of ALL illegal aliens ARE Latino, with over 90% of those being Mexican.

Americans aren't the ones making this about race, illegal aliens and their enablers are.

Originally Posted by JohnB2012

The issue here is about illegal immigration, not race. It is nobody's fault but their own that the majority of the illegal aliens are hispanic.

So now, under your collective guilt concept, government is justified in targeting an entire group numbering in the millions for actions of some members of the group?

I thought we lived in an America where individuals are evaluated by the content of their character and not their ethnicity.

PinestrawGuys
Well said.

I thought we lived in an America where individuals are evaluated by the content of their character and not their ethnicity.

Urinating and fighting in public says a lot for their character.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

bquasius,

I've stayed out of these conversations of yours up until now, and I'd like to put in my 2 cents.

While I agree with you that legal immigrants should not be harassed, I think that you are missing the underlying and overriding cause of their harassment.

I'm glad you agree that legal immigrants should not be harassed. As Americans for Legal Immigration, we should not make statements that infer that legal immigrants as a group are responsible for illegal immigration. The "white power" lobby does enough of that, and most on this forum would prefer not to be lumped with that crowd. They're hateful and unamerican.

No doubt there are some Latino legal immigrants or citizens involved with smuggling, but as with any other group it is unjust to apply this characterization to everyone. There are likely many of millions of legal immigrants and Latino citizens who have absolutely nothing to do with illegal immigration. There's one group of Latinos that is absolutely outraged at Latino leaders that claim to speak for all Latinos. See www.dontspeakforme.org.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

Many legal Latino immigrants not only condone illegal immigration, but facilitate and support it. Every legal Latino has the moral obligation to report illegal aliens, but very few, if any, ever do. This seems to be an instance of ethnicity over citizenship, and is tearing away the protections that legality is supposed to afford.

Really? This sounds like pure stereotyping of Latinos, as if they all think alike, that if some Latinos immigrate illegally then others will always support them. Have any statistics on what percentage of Latinos aid and abet illegal immigration, or fail to report illegal aliens? Or is this pure conjecture on your part?

The Pew Hispanic Center found a majority of Hispanics, especially middle-class citizens, take a dim view of illegal immigration.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

You are going to have to come to terms with the rising anger of American citizens and choose which side you will support. By not actively denouncing illegal aliens for what they are, wage thieves and law-breakers, you tacitly endorse the very actions that cause the discrimination that you so eloquently oppose.

We don't all have to be lock in-step with each other on every issue, and please don't put words into my mouth. I have actively and repeatedly denounced illegal immigration and opposed any form of amnesty. I was actively involved in the last election, supporting an anti-amnesty candidate running against a co-sponsor of the AgJobs amnesty bill.

What I do oppose is "group think" or any form of "collective guilt", requiring that large groups of citizens are punished for the actions of a few who never had anything to do with the misconduct.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

I have Mexican-American family members, who've been citizens for multiple generations, that espouse the Aztlan-Reconquista philosophy. They make me sick, but what's even worse is they make me suspicious of ALL Mexicans, and consequently all Latinos.

Latinos are one of the most diverse ethnic and racial groups in the world, and it is wrong to assume they all have the same political philosophies and opinions. My wife and step-daughter are LEGAL immigrants from Honduras, who don't support illegal immigration or amensty, and the only flags they wave in a parade is an American flag. And by the way they were right there with me in the last election campaign helping the anti-amnesty anti-illegal immigration candidate for Congress (Michael Barrett).

No one in her extended family has ever lived here illegally or supported Aztlan-Reconquista philosophy, which I doubt they've even heard of since they're from a different region of Latin America. They are honorable people who are deeply offended when others lump them in with illegal immigrants, criminals, and others who have completely different values and beliefs from them. About half her extended family has some sort of visa to the U.S., and not one has abused their status.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

Understand, over 98% of ALL illegal aliens ARE Latino, with over 90% of those being Mexican.

I doubt your 98% statistic. Mexicans might be the most visible at the moment, but I recall reading credible statistics that sizeable populations of illegal immigrants also came from China, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Perhaps you could share your source with us, or is that conjecture as well?

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

Americans aren't the ones making this about race, illegal aliens and their enablers are.

Town officials calling a group of Latinos "locusts", among other derogatory statements sure sounded like playing the race card to me. The day laborers had a belief based upon credible facts that they were targeted at least in part because they are Latino.

The sad truth is that there are some individuals and organizations on different sides of the immigration issues that have hidden racial agendas. I'm glad that ALIPAC is not one of them, and while I'm not labeling anyone on this board of being a racist, I am saddened to read obvious stereotypes in some posts. Stereotypes based upon ethnicity or race have an unpleasant way of becoming a core part of racist philosophy.

Originally Posted by JohnB2012

I thought we lived in an America where individuals are evaluated by the content of their character and not their ethnicity.

Urinating and fighting in public says a lot for their character.

Did I forgot to mention that in America individuals, even the humble day laborers, who are accused of breaking the law have trials, evidence, etc. before we make such a determination? Or do we live in some mythical place named Amerika, where summary judgements are the rule and anyone labeled a suspect, whether by accusation or by association are guilty until proven innocent?

With all that police presence at the day laborer's site, one would think the police would have a huge stack of arrests/tickets for urinating in public, drugs, fighting, molesting women and children, and other dispicable acts. These allegations, among others, were made by the town, but when it came time to prove them in court there was no evidence connecting the plaintiffs or other day laborers to problems like these. The judge also dismissed some allegations by the plaintiffs, when there was likewise a lack of other evidence to back them up.

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the day workers had nothing to do with problems in the community, often at night and/or several blocks away? The judge saw through it, and the plaintiffs had a massive amount of evidence to prove their case.

I'm not fond of activist judges, and rarely agree with New York Times editorials, but I have to tell you I don't this case was judicial activism, and the plaintiffs made a compelling case for discrimination.

Originally Posted by bquasius

Originally Posted by JohnB2012

I thought we lived in an America where individuals are evaluated by the content of their character and not their ethnicity.

Urinating and fighting in public says a lot for their character.

Did I forgot to mention that in America individuals, even the humble day laborers, who are accused of breaking the law have trials, evidence, etc. before we make such a determination? Or do we live in some mythical place named Amerika, where summary judgements are the rule and anyone labeled a suspect, whether by accusation or by association are guilty until proven innocent?

With all that police presence at the day laborer's site, one would think the police would have a huge stack of arrests/tickets for urinating in public, drugs, fighting, molesting women and children, and other dispicable acts. These allegations, among others, were made by the town, but when it came time to prove them in court there was no evidence connecting the plaintiffs or other day laborers to problems like these. The judge also dismissed some allegations by the plaintiffs, when there was likewise a lack of other evidence to back them up.

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the day workers had nothing to do with problems in the community, often at night and/or several blocks away? The judge saw through it, and the plaintiffs had a massive amount of evidence to prove their case.

I'm not fond of activist judges, and rarely agree with New York Times editorials, but I have to tell you I don't this case was judicial activism, and the plaintiffs made a compelling case for discrimination.

I don't care for your tone, bquasius, and I don't like your continual suggestions that anyone who disagrees with you and your admittedly biased stance is a racist or a Klansman.

The fact is that a city has a right to zone as it sees fit and an absolute right to regulate commerce within its borders. That's why towns can make things like prostitution illegal and limit or prohibit sexually explicit businesses or alcohol sales. The only wild card in this BS decision is the bogus race card that's being played. If these day laborers had been poor white folks they would have been s.o.l. and the thing would have never made it to court.

We are not talking about a sub-class whose rights are being abused, but rather a sub-class that increasingly has special dispensation to ignore our laws and to have stricken down any ordinances that they don't like. Hey, there are PLENTY of local ordinances that I don't like, but because I'm just a hard-working white guy, I can't have a slick attorney and an activist judge strike them down for me. I have to go through due process and achieve a consensus of my fellow residents or at least of our elected officials, which is how things are SUPPOSED to work. I don't get to take the cheap short-cut, and neither should they.

Bquasius, not everything comes down to race, at least not with typical Americans. That doesn't seem to the be the case with people like you, who act as apologists for those who have no respect for our institutions or our laws.

Let's consider this reply one point at a time.

Originally Posted by bquasius

And did anyone check the papers of the dozens of day workers at the site. Answer: NEVER was done! So how do you know they were all illegal?

Checking papers is pointless because experience in all these little towns indicates thay carry multiple Social Security cards and often simply claim citizenship and lie about their identity. If arrested, which is extremely rare, they bond out and vanish to appear elsewhere under a new name. Police often pass a scofflaw simply because they don't have five hours to determine the real identity. Most are skilled liars or they would already have been deported.

Originally Posted by bquasius

To some, Latino is synomonous with illegal immigrant. Target any group of Latinos for aggressive enforcement of laws intended to be neutral, and yes, you will also harass many legal immigrants and citizens as well.

This statement is typical of an open-border advocate and patently untrue. I personally know many Latinos and don't think of any as illegal. Too, I know many more gringos and none of them are confused regarding Latino and illegal. In all my reading, I've never detected anyone or read of any in law enforcement who were so confused or ignorant. It might interest bquasius to know the term "Latino" in America denotes legal citizenship, often second or third generation, and those who are not citizens simply are Mexican, Venezuelan, Costa Rican, etc. Further, "Hispanic" is an American, not English, word derived from the Spanish word "hispanohablantes," which means "Spanish speaker." Legal citizens are required to demonstrate some rudimentary literacy in English. This is a popular criticism that manifests considerable ignorance inherent in illegal alien activists.

Originally Posted by bquasius

Target Latino day workers, and you'll get even closer to harassing only illegal immigrants, but still not 100%, perhaps 80% right. Who cares about the other 20% who happen to be legal immigrants or citizens?

This may very well be true but one proverb says, "If you lie down with dogs, you're bound to get a few fleas."

Originally Posted by bquasius

Why not just pass a law making it illegal to hire any Latinos and just deport them all? It surely would have an impact on illegal immigrants wouldn't it? We interned Japanese-American citizens in World War II, didn't we? Didn't that prevent sabotage? But wait, Hawaii didn't intern except a few known security risks, and didn't have any sabotage. How could that be?

This is a simple-minded, childish rant followed by the usual pout, and the WWII analogy simply doesn't work. No Pearl Harbor, just a corrupt neighbor that has no armed forces, to speak of. No 21st Century intern camps for which to apologize. Apology issued to Japanese-Americans but no apology due illegal aliens. The Japanese were legal, the Mexicans are not. No Mexicans are interned unless they commit at least felony-level crimes which many do. And the question, "...why not just pass a law..." doesn't make sense because we already have a law against illegal aliens. In fact we have books full of laws regarding illegal aliens. This was a silly question and a silly suggestion by one ignorant in the law, logic and the current problem.

Originally Posted by bquasius

The town admitted they did not EVEN KNOW the immigration status of the day laborers, not to mention the status of Latinos who weren't day laborers and had the misfortune to be driving by or visiting the park nearby when the police were involved in their campaign.

Correctomundo! Most of these little towns are opposed to day laborers who typically urinate in the street, puke in the bushes, defecate in side doorways to nearby businesses, hoot at passing women, lie to the police, hazard customers and on and on. The key is most are illegal aliens but the primary problem is the nuisance.

Originally Posted by bquasius

The plaintiffs all told the court they wished to remain anonymous because they were afraid of the police. If the police had spent months following you around, chased away all the people who wanted to hire you, had kept a day laborer in a car for two hours, had stared at you while holding his hand on his gun, wouldn't you feel intimidated too? I know I would, and I'm a U.S. Citizen.

The reason they remained anonymous is clear to everyone but bquasius. They live in this country illegally and want American free stuff to continue flowing to them. Revealing their identity risks losing all that.

Originally Posted by bquasius

We need to make life difficult for illegal immigrants. But we are also a country of democratic values and the rule of law. As much as we find illegal immigration loathsome, we can't abuse the rights of those who are here legally just because they have similar appearance or national origin to some illegal aliens.

I wonder why the legal term ALIEN is never used by these advocates when it's the legal term used in our laws. In any event, most folks don't want to make life difficult for illegal ALIENS. They want life for them to be impossible in the US. Perhaps bquasius would share a few links to anecdotes regarding legal Latinos being abused, deported, falsely arrested, etc., simply because they looked illegal. I'd opine it's rare such as to defy calculation. This is another lame argument that most effective advocates stopped using some years ago.

Originally Posted by bquasius

Bring in the ICE to the day laborer hiring site to check papers, and I'll be right there supporting you 1000%. But take actions, such as extremely aggressive police enforcement targeted at a certain ethnic or racial group, and I will oppose this as the discrimination it is. We can't target an entire group of people for retribution for the actions of part of the group. That's not justice and that's not the American way.

Finally, here's another laughable argument. It's ludicrous because informed advocates know we have 12-30 million illegal aliens in the US and hundreds of thousands who idle at day labor centers. They also know the entire DHS, particularly the ICE division hasn't nearly the level of staffing necessary to deal with this scourge. And besides, if you have even one eyeball, you know these folks have no legal papers and lie about their identities. Most of the papers held are fraudulent so the only effective way to eliminate this curse is to eliminate employment and housing opportunities.