Thread: Wielding a camera

I like this guy! I think he is one to something!

http://www.postherald.com/me061305.shtml

Wielding a camera
Campaign against day labor doesn't please authorities
By DANIEL CONNOLLY
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD
One photograph shows Hispanic day laborers pulling down the brims of their baseball caps to hide their faces.
In another shot, a middle-aged woman sits at the wheel of a sedan with a concerned look on her face. Two day laborers are visible in the back seat.

Another photo shows a man leaning out a vehicle's window to give the camera a middle-fingered salute.

All the photos were taken by Dennis Burgess, who's trying to stem the day labor market on Hoover's Lorna Road by photographing the people who pick up immigrant workers. He wants to dry up the jobs so the day laborers, many of whom are here illegally, go home.

"The federal government wants to say it's not their problem that all these folks are here," he said. "The local government says, well, we're waiting for federal direction. But I'm not restrained by any of them. I'm just going out there, and if I can make a little bit of a difference every time I go out there. ..."

In practice, his effort involves standing near the day laborers until an employer pulls up. Then he moves forward to photograph the negotiations and the vehicle's license plate with his digital camera. He sometimes argues with day laborers and the people who pick them up. He counts it as a victory when a contractor chooses not to drive off with a worker.

The Hoover police haven't been happy with his one-man campaign. Neither are some of the day laborers. There's also the matter of the gun he was carrying when police stopped him in May.

For several years, day labor has been a fact of life on Lorna Road. Nearly all the day laborers are new arrivals from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Several have said in interviews that they entered the country illegally. But contractors and ordinary residents routinely pick them up to do a wide range of work. Efforts to restrict the day labor market to a sanctioned area in front of the Multicultural Resource Center on nearby government property in Hoover haven't succeeded.

Burgess is an avid Alabama football fan who is single and lives in an apartment in unincorporated Jefferson County outside Hoover. He said he'd served eight years in the Navy before returning to Birmingham. He usually does his photography on Fridays, his day off from his jobs at a company that prints checks and as a property manager for a real estate company.

He believes illegal immigrants are a drain on education and health resources. He said employers who use illegal immigrant labor have an unfair advantage over those who follow the law.

"I acknowledge, I admit that these guys are for the most part hard-working folks. But there's too many of them," Burgess said. "And you go by the philosophy, 'If you build it, they will come.' If there are folks out here that want to hire them, they're going to keep coming. And one way to counter that is, 'If you tear it down, they will leave.' "

His efforts to solve the problem on his own mirror the frustration of others across the nation who say the government is doing little to control illegal immigration. Earlier this year a group called the Minuteman Project organized a patrol of a patch of Arizona desert where immigrants cross regularly. The effort wasn't supported by the federal government but attracted widespread attention. Meanwhile, some states are trying to get ahead of the federal government in tightening enforcement. In November, voters in Arizona approved a bill that restricted some state services to illegal immigrants. Similar bills recently failed in Alabama and Colorado.

Burgess said he got interested in the issue some time ago after day laborers harassed his then-fiancee and her daughter when they tried to pump gas.

"You feel frustrated after a while. You've got to go out of your way to get gas to avoid some of these folks," he said. "You're dodging them when they're crossing the street."

He's not the only person in Hoover who's concerned about illegal immigration. The leading candidates in Hoover's mayoral campaign in 2004 made fighting illegal immigration a central issue. Soon after the inauguration of Mayor Tony Petelos, the city established its own Department of Homeland Security and Immigration. But the one-man department has no authority to enforce immigration law. And the federal agency that enforces immigration law is understaffed. In a February interview, Michael A. Holt, special agent in charge for the bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said there are only 39 federal immigration officers in Alabama, 28 of them in the port city of Mobile.

That's one officer for every 116,000 Alabama residents.

A 2003 report from the former Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated 24,000 illegal immigrants lived in Alabama in 2000. In interviews, immigration enforcement officials have said they focus on illegal immigrants involved in criminal activity.

Enforcement of immigration laws at work sites is rare. There were only 451 arrests at work sites nationwide in fiscal year 2002, compared with 17,552 in fiscal year 1997, according to federal statistics.

Employers must check documents to make sure people have the legal right to work in this country even if they're just hired for the day, said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"The common practice (in day labor) is they don't. But just as if you hired someone to work for you at your house from a day labor market, let's say, and they get hurt, you could be sued," he said.

Violations of immigration law tend to go hand-in-hand with violations of labor and safety standards, he said. And some contractors cheat day laborers by refusing to pay them, he said.

Despite the potential for violations of the law, enforcement actions on Lorna Road have been rare. In April 2004, federal immigration agents detained 27 suspected illegal immigrants near the Chevron station at the corner of Lorna Road and Patton Chapel Road.

Bob Berry, Hoover's director of homeland security and immigration, said he's not aware of another large sweep since then.

On April 12, Burgess made his first trip to take photos near the Chevron station.

Burgess said he planned to document the activity to send to the Internal Revenue Service.

But it's not clear that it's a violation of tax law to hire day laborers, Internal Revenue Service spokesman Dan Boone said. "You'd have to know all the facts and circumstances to be able to say black or white, yes it is, no it isn't," he said.

At any rate, Burgess said he hasn't sent any of the photos to the IRS.

But he's claimed smaller victories â€â€

This is a great idea! If this guy only had a website, he'd be cooking! Im sending this over to SaveOurState.org I think they will like this plan of action.

W

"The more we work here, the more people give us work, the faster we can go back to see our family because we bring back something with which we can feed them."

The more they work here the more they bring here. Yes, they're sending money back home but they're also encouraging other family members and friends to flock here as well.

We don't need them and don't want them.

Hooray for the camera wielder.

RR

Alvarez Gardono, 44, said his earnings support a family of eight children in Mexico's Jalisco state who range in age from 1½ to 14.

This is a MEXICO problem! NOT America's problem. I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but don't they have Birth Control in Mexico?

I'm tired of reading letters to papers from supporters of Illegal Immigration stating "they're hard working people, who are merely here to work the lowest of jobs in order to put food on the table for their babies". Well, if they have 8 babies in Mexico then I think they need more than just a job. They need cases of condoms.

Those Illegals who lament they have many children back home to support are the ones who are leaving whole families behind and come here only to meet up with a new woman and begin having more kids, that now the US welfare system is responsible for.

And not all the Illegals send money back home to support their kids. Each day abandoned and desolate Mexican women contact the American government begging for their husbands to be deported back to take care of their responsibilties.

That old argument about how they are "hard working" irritates me. If they are such hard working people I got a good job for them. Go back to Mexico and work real hard to make your own country better. Let's see how hard you can work doing that.

Somebody should contact him and shake his hand.

I have to work saturday and therefore have half a day off Friday. I think I shall make a little drive out to Hoover (outskirts of Birmingham) and meet this guy! Will let ya know if he is out there.

The article was good until they got to the end and put the pity aspect to it.

Great article but if you scroll down the page a little you run across this disgusting one.



Catholics seek to help aliens
By ROSA RAMIREZ
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD
The Catholic Church has launched an immigration reform campaign that would help millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States become legal residents.
The campaign, "Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope, the Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform," focuses on educating Catholics, including policy-makers, about immigrants' contributions. It also urges them to support legislation that allows undocumented immigrants to obtain residency.

The plan organizes a Catholic legal service network to aid immigrants applying for visas, worker permits or permanent residency.

In 2000, an estimated 24,000 undocumented immigrants were living in Alabama, according to a 2003 report by the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"The idea is to go back to Catholic social teachings," said Leo Anchondo, a spokesman for National Justice for Immigrants, a Catholic agency leading the campaign. "The Catholic community at large is welcoming of newcomers."

He said the goal is to provide immigrants a dignified way to live and work legally in the United States.

Anchondo said the campaign started May 10.

"We will work with Congress and the administration in an effort to find correct ways to fix our broken immigration system," he said.

Al Manzella, director of Catholic Social Services in Birmingham, said the group provides services to Hispanic immigrants, including legal assistance.

"Most of what is happening is at the congressional level," Manzella said. "At the local level, we support the national bishops' effort, but we have a different approach."

Manzella said Catholic Social Services offers help such as referral services to free health clinics and works with organizations such as the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. to provide legal assistance to those in need.

"Hispanic families are giving birth to children in Alabama. These kids are citizens, are bilingual and in the future (they) will be a political force," Manzella said.

"The Hispanic people that have come to Alabama have strong family values, strong religious values and strong work values," he said. "They represent positive American values. ... We can learn as much from their culture as they can learn from our culture."

In June 2004, American and Mexican Catholic bishops published a joint letter titled "Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope," calling for an immigration reform that allows those working in the United States to reunite with their families.

Jack Martin, special project director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a non-profit organization calling for stricter immigration laws, said the church's position on immigration is not unique to the Catholic Church.

"The Catholic Church has for many years been advocating for increased immigration and amnesty for immigrants who come into the country," Martin said. "Their position does not surprise us."

Martin said the Catholic Church's position is, in part, shaped by the need to increase the number of Catholics, many of whom are Hispanic immigrants.

"They look at the flow of immigration, that at present time is heavily Catholic as an important (group) that benefits the (Catholic) Church in the U.S."

Manzella disagrees.

"We don't help immigrants because it affects the Catholic Church. It has been the role of the church in this country. We are an immigrant church," he said. "Most all Catholics in this country have immigrant parents and great-grandparents who are immigrants."

Before coming here he was a farmer. Mexico's struggling economy left him few options other than leaving earlier this year, he said.

There are ALWAYS options other than breaking the law. And as long as he's going to break the law, why doesn't he just stay at home and rob banks or sell drugs?

Documenting crimes by taking photos is a great idea, but the whole process needs a sexier name.

I'll put this on the blog and link to the discussion here and on SOS.

EDIT - I think it would be more effective if there were a second person handing out flyers to the employers describing the Federal law against hiring illegals and laying out the penalties.

Or, if there is a Marine Corps base in the neighborhood, hand them one of these.
I put it together using their graphics.

Marines, and their families, could use some work sent their way.