Thread: FL: Protesters putting pressure on El Sol day labor center

Protesters putting pressure on El Sol day labor center

By ANA X. CERON

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

JUPITER — On Saturdays, the workers at the El Sol day labor center stay inside.

For four months, a group of protesters has been picketing outside the center on the corner of Military Trail and Indiantown Road. They hold up poster boards that read, "Does Your Contractor Use Illegal Aliens?" One protester has brought in a dog wearing a small sign that asks, "I have my papers, do you?"

"This is their country, this is their right," a laborer said when asked what he thought about the Saturday demonstrations. "We didn't come here to do harm. We're here to work."

The protests have been going on since Dec. 1, when a mobile unit of the Guatemalan Consulate arrived to help workers obtain identification papers. The center temporarily closed because there wasn't enough staff to handle both the consulate's work and the protests.

"After that, it was business as usual," said Mike Richmond, head of one of the volunteer groups that run El Sol.

Still, some things are different.

Town police officers are now stationed at the center to make sure things in and out of the facility stay under control. Officers have been there since a Dec. 8 confrontation, which ended in the arrest of a man who had gone to the center to look for workers.

After that incident, the center reconfigured the traffic flow on Saturdays to make sure potential employers were closer to the entrance - and farther from the protesters.

The workers take their own precautions. They seem more careful about protecting their identities, wary of the media.

Richmond said more donations have come in - a show of support to counter the criticism, some donors have told El Sol.

Protesters have plans to videotape more of the goings-on at the center, said David Caulkett. Caulkett, a Pompano Beach resident who does Web site development for a living, posted a video on the Internet that captured the December confrontation between him and Randall Smith, which ended with Smith's arrest on a battery charge. Smith was acquitted of the misdemeanor charge on March 20.

It was a ruling Caulkett did not expect. He also was surprised that another protester, John Parsons, lost a bid for a town council seat.

Since then, fewer protestors have shown up for the past couple of Saturdays. But it isn't because of Parsons' loss, Caulkett said.

"It takes a lot," Caulkett said of the efforts to organize the protests.

"People are taking a little breather, so our numbers are down a little bit, but we will be back out."

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One protester has brought in a dog wearing a small sign that asks, "I have my papers, do you?"

awwwww........a protester puppy

My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog thinks I am.