http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/news/local ... 1_daylabor

Monday, February 6, 2006
Police targeting day laborers

Local residents applaud the action. Critics call it 'a poor use of resources.'

CLAUDINE LoMONACO
lomonaco@tucsoncitizen.com

Cruz Manuel Quiñones waits in the chilly predawn air at the corner of 23rd Street and Ninth Avenue. Men like him and the couple of dozen men with him have been gathering there for decades, hoping to be hired for a day's work.

But they've been having a hard time lately.

Tucson police started cracking down in the area last month after neighbors complained about men littering, blocking sidewalks and spilling into the street.

A police cruiser parks alongside the men most mornings now, occasionally ticketing them or the contractors who pick them up for minor infractions such as blocking traffic.

The increased scrutiny comes on the heels of a U.S. Border Patrol raid conducted in the area in November at the request of Tucson police. The raid swept up 21 laborers, two of whom, like 30-year-old Quiñones, were in the country legally. Quiñones is a U.S. citizen.

The crackdown mirrors similar efforts in Phoenix and across the country. Day laborers are coming under greater scrutiny in the conflict over illegal immigration.

Tucson police Chief Richard Miranda says his officers are trying to keep neighborhoods safe and are not after illegal immigrants. In fact, he is opposed to making police officers enforce federal immigration laws.

But critics of the police activity at the day laborers' gathering spot say it's a poor use of resources and see a shift in the department's long-standing policy of leaving immigration enforcement to the federal government.

The laborers say it's scaring away contractors.

"Nobody's stopping with the police around," said Quiñones, who was born in Phoenix but lives with his wife and three children in Nogales, Son. He does landscaping for $12 an hour at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base for most of the year and comes here when there's no work there.

"I've never seen people causing problems," Quiñones said. "If people come here in the cold of the morning it's because they want to work. They want to take care of their families. If not, we'd still be in bed."

Long history in Tucson

In many parts of the country, day laborers are relatively new.

A recently released study of day laborers published by the University of California put their numbers at around 117,600.

The study found that 75 percent of them were in the country illegally, and day laborers have become the target of illegal immigration foes and Web sites, such as www.wehirealiens.com, which has listed the corner near Ninth Avenue and 23rd Street.

Laborers have been gathering there for decades, said the Rev. John Fife, retired minister of Southside Presbyterian Church, just down the block from the intersection.

During the 1960s and '70s, the state ran a center at 22nd Street and Ninth Avenue to recruit Latinos and Native Americans from the South Side to work the cotton farms of Marana.

Contractors and home owners also began coming to the area to find workers.

The center closed in the late '70s once cotton farms mechanized, but contractors kept going there to find workers who moved out onto the sidewalks along Ninth Avenue, Fife said.

"Major sectors of the economy in Tucson depend on day laborers," Fife said. "Construction, roofing, landscaping. Those guys supply the labor for it."

Robert Topalian periodically picks up workers here for landscaping on his rental property, which funds his full-time missionary work in Mexico, he said.

"This seems to be the best location for good workers," Topalian said, leaning out the window of his white truck. "Everybody I've seen has been orderly and polite. I haven't seen any problems."

Some neighbors disagree.

When Benny Allen moved to 23rd Street last year, men started whistling at his 13- and 15-year-old daughters on their way to school.

"I didn't like it," he said, so he called the police.

One woman said she has stopped sitting on her patio ever since she saw a man urinating in her front yard.

"In a residential place, this isn't something you want to see every day," Allen said.

Neighbors said they supported the laborers' right to look for work. They just didn't want it happening in front of their homes.

Critics

City Councilman Steve Leal, who represents the area, said the police response is out of proportion to the problem.

"Historically, there have never really been a significant number of complaints," he said. "I think they have more important things to deal with."

He called the effort a "cat and mouse" strategy that will not solve the problem and has created unnecessary ill will.

Miranda said making police officers enforce immigration law - a move recently taken by a handful of police departments around the country - would stretch already thin resources and erode the Latino community's trust in the police.

Miranda has tried to reassure Latino residents that they can report a crime without worrying that the police will report them to the Border Patrol.

"We have a lot of people without the proper paperwork who have made Tucson their home," Miranda said, "and at that point, they are deserving, if they become a victim, of the same police protection and services as everyone else."

But the police crackdown and a Border Patrol raid, which was widely broadcast on Spanish-language TV, have made the Latino community more suspicious of Tucson police and more reluctant to go to the police even when it has information that can help solve a crime, said immigrant-rights lawyer and activist Isabel Garcia.

"People are afraid to call the police even if they are the victims," she said. "Deportation and banishment is a far greater penalty than living with the consequences of whatever crime they're trying to report."

Leal, Miranda and Garcia agreed that a day labor center would help solve the problem, while cleaning up the neighborhood for residents and helping protect laborers from abusive employers.

The Primavera Foundation, a Tucson nonprofit organization that provides services to the homeless and the poor, has a day labor program, but requires participants to prove they are legal residents.

Last year, Arizona passed a law that bans cities, towns and counties from building or maintaining a work center that facilitates the hiring of illegal immigrants.

Southside Presbyterian is discussing plans to build a center on one of its parking lots, and Leal said he was considering approaching Home Depot, which has built and funded day labor centers next to some stores in California.

Back on the corner of 23rd and Ninth, a white van slows down. Quiñones approaches, gives a thumbs up and hops in. He has work, at least for today.

INSIDE/2A

Arizona state legislators are considering using squads of state police to catch

illegal immigrants who slip past federal agents.

Day labor report

From "On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States," the first comprehensive study of day laborers, released in January by the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty at UCLA:

• 117,600 day laborers are in the United States.

• 75 percent are in the United States illegally.

• 59 percent of workers are from Mexico.

• 28 percent are from Central America.

• 49 percent reported not being paid for their work at least once in the last two months.

• 44 percent were denied food, water or breaks while on the job.

• 20 percent reported a workplace injury, and half of those did not receive medical care.

• Median wage is $10 an hour.

• Workers earn $500 to $1,400 a month.

• 49 percent of employers are homeowners or renters.

• 43 percent of employers are contractors.

• Top five occupations are construction worker, gardener, painter, roofer and drywall installer.