Thread: McGONIGLE CANYON : UPDATE

Camps closed, but migrants still in canyon

By Kristina Davis

SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE

November 22, 2006

Faced with nowhere else to sleep, many of the migrant workers who were evicted last week from illegal encampments in McGonigle Canyon reportedly are bedding down in other parts of the Rancho Peñasquitos canyon.

“The workers are sleeping wherever night finds them,” said attorney Claudia Smith of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

On Friday, about 180 men living in the canyon on developer DR Horton's land were told to pack up and leave or face arrest.
The effort between landowners and police to close the encampments had been in the planning stages for months, but it was enacted suddenly a day before a widely publicized protest was to take place on the property.

Police say a handful of private landowners now are enforcing “No Trespassing” warnings posted around the property between Carmel Valley and Rancho Peñasquitos, as well as paying security guards to look for intruders.

Some say the eviction only has led the men to sleep in other parts of the canyon to stay near the tomato fields, where many work.

“There's still a harvest going on, so they have to stay nearby,” said Smith, director of the foundation's border program. “By accelerating this shutdown of the encampments, all that's going to happen is they are going to crop up somewhere else.”

Gerald Katz, who lives at nearby Rancho Glens Estates, said migrants have begun to cross into the canyon near his neighborhood at dusk.

Katz said many gather at a food cart parked at Rancho del Sol nursery and wait for nightfall before going through a hole in the fence and back into the canyon.

Julie Adams, a longtime critic of the encampments who lives a mile from the canyon, said she hasn't noticed as many migrants since last week.

“It seems quieter, but there are obviously still guys in there,” Adams said. “Unless the property owners enforce it, (the migrants) are all just going to come back.”

San Diego police Capt. Boyd Long said he has not received complaints from the landowners about trespassers since last week.

“It's important that we keep on top of it, but we've received no complaints at this point,” Long said.

Police will meet with the landowners, city officials and residents next week to discuss how to prevent the camps from jumping to the next canyon.

Enrique Morones of Border Angels has been receiving several donations of blankets, food and water to distribute to the displaced workers over the past week.

“We are as concerned as always that people live in these conditions, and we are working and praying to get them out and into decent housing,” Morones said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... anyon.html

The Battle Over a Shantytown
By DANIEL STRUMPF Voice Staff Writer


Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006 | Residents of the Torrey Santa Fe subdivision in Rancho Peñasquitos have grown accustomed to outsiders. As the sun rises each morning, dozens of migrant workers emerge from the scrub-filled canyons beyond the neighborhood's cul-de-sacs and make their way down its sidewalks toward work.

It's been a part of the daily routine here since these million-dollar homes were first built five years ago. But the news helicopters that hovered above the neighborhood last weekend were something new.

Media outlets -- some as international as the BBC -- turned out en masse on Saturday to cover a rally organized by a Rancho Peñasquitos resident, an AM talk radio host and a local Minutemen group upset with the fact that people live in the canyon's shantytowns. Joining the organizers Saturday was a mix of tattooed biker types, retirees and suburban moms with kids fresh from soccer games in tow.

The crowd, estimated at about 200 people, gathered on a patch of city-owned land and carried dozens of American flags and signs emblazoned with slogans like "only traitors hire illegal aliens." Some brought along pit bulls and other large dogs. They sang patriotic songs like "The Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless the USA (Proud to Be an American)," chatted about immigration and traded insults with a handful of human rights observers there to monitor the event.

But the people who actually live in the neighborhood here had mixed feelings about the protest. Some thought drawing attention to the fact that migrants live in the canyon was a positive thing, while others said the migrants are good people, who work hard, mind their own business and deserve to be left alone.

"I want them all to go home," Howard Merrikea said of the protesters and news crews. Merrikea lives a block from the canyon and said he's never had any trouble with the canyon's residents in his four years in the neighborhood.

Related Links

NBC4 News Report (Nov. 10, 2006)

The Revolving Canyon (Aug. 30, 2006)

Brothers of the Canyon (April 3, 2006)

A Shanty Town's Danger and Hope (April 4, 2006)

Outlaws in the Open (April 5, 2006)

Police and city officials blamed sensational media coverage leading up to the event, saying misinformation regarding allegations of prostitution and drug use fueled plans for anti-illegal immigration protestors to camp out in the canyon.

"We have right-wing radio on our tails," said City Council President Scott Peters, a moderate Democrat whose district includes Rancho Peñasquitos. "That's a big part of this."

In anticipation of the campout and possible confrontations, DR Horton, a developer that owns property in the canyon, evicted approximately 150 people who live there in shacks -- a portion of them likely undocumented immigrants. DR Horton and Pardee Homes, another developer that owns land in the canyon, threatened anyone who trespassed -- migrants or protestors -- with arrest.

Merrikea said he attended Saturday's rally to let the protestors know that his family doesn't want them in their neighborhood. His message was not well received by the crowd that shuffled about a gravel lot overlooking the nearby tomato fields where many of the migrants work.

Several people engaged Merrikea in heated verbal exchanges.

While television crews swarmed around the shouting matches, police and city officials say the media deserves much of the credit for sparking the most recent flare-up in the long-running controversy over what to do about the canyon dwellers.

"This unfolded with a lot of information being given out without a lot of research," said Boyd Long, captain of the San Diego Police Department's Northern Division.

Two weeks ago, a Los Angeles NBC affiliate produced a television news story alleging that prostitution and drug dealing were prevalent in the canyon camps. When Long was interviewed for the segment, he asked the reporter, Ana Garcia, for evidence of the crimes. Long said he was told he'd have to watch the news.

But when Garcia's story aired in San Diego and Los Angeles it only showed two grainy images of women walking through a wooded area and no video of any drug dealing.

"I saw no evidence of drug use or prostitution," Long said. "I didn't see anything but women there."

Long said that while he wouldn't rule out the possibility that those crimes occur in the canyon, he said previous prostitution investigations there have yielded no arrests. The mere presence of women in the camp is not surprising considering that many work at a nearby tomato-packing plant, he said.

News segments making similar claims aired two more times over the next week.

"It took an L.A. news station to come down here and expose this," said Julie Adams at Saturday's event. "I call it our dirty little secret."

Adams, a Rancho Peñasquitos resident who helped organize the rally, has been an outspoken opponent of the migrant camps. She was featured in all of Garcia's stories and also teamed up with a local group of Minutemen to hold a canyon cleanup that garnered additional television coverage last week.

After Garcia's segments aired, Rick Roberts, the conservative host of a local radio talk show, featured Adams on his program every day last week. Roberts made similar claims about drug dealing and prostitution and promoted Saturday's event as the "first annual McGonigle Canyon legal resident campout."

Mayor Jerry Sanders appeared on Roberts' show last Friday and credited the host for bringing pressure to bear on the issue. "I think that obviously a fire has been lit now and I think you will see some action occurring rapidly," Sanders said.

But not everyone views Roberts' intervention so favorably.

Peters said migrants have lived in the canyons in the area for more than 20 years, well before many of the homes in the area were constructed. He believes residents have become increasingly concerned as new development has reduced the amount of open space and forced the neighborhood's two divergent populations to have greater interaction.

However, Peters said he thinks any resulting tensions haven't been soothed any by Roberts' rhetoric.

The council president said he didn't think the general community was very concerned about the migrants in the canyon. He credited a relatively small, yet vocal, minority with stirring up a situation that derailed the city's plans to close the camps at the end of the tomato season in December, when many of the migrants voluntarily return to their home countries.

That plan had been moving forward since July, with representatives from Peters' office and the police department meeting with property owners. Vehicle access to the canyon has been permanently blocked and the owners were in the process of posting "no trespassing" signs on their property. The last steps were to post signs on the migrant's shacks and ask them to leave.

"What they have done is accelerated something that was already in place," Long said of Adams and Roberts.

Roberts didn't attend Saturday's rally because of safety concerns, Adams said. The city refused to let the protestors camp out on its land, forcing them to settle for just a protest.

Some of the neighbors from the subdivision attended the rally. Jill and Greg Gower supported the protesters.

"Everyone's a bit concerned about it," said Jill Gower, the secretary of the neighborhood homeowners association. Residents don't feel safe using the canyon's trails for recreation, and migrants park their cars in the neighborhood, leaving little room for residents, Gower said.

"I doubt it will help," Greg Gower said of the protest. "But I think it's good that they are out here voicing their opinions."

The entire ordeal seems ridiculous to Anthony Rogers, who watched the rally from his house, where he's lived immediately adjacent to the canyon for five years. A retired city police officer, Rogers said he keeps a close eye on the neighborhood and said the migrants don't cause any trouble.

Rogers said he keeps his doors unlocked and leaves his car keys in the ignition over night. He also allows the migrants to use his garden hose, recharge their cell phones at his home and has driven a few to the hospital for medical care, he said.

"I think most of the neighbors here aren't concerned too much," Rogers said. "To be honest, you never really hear any of the neighbors complain."

Tony and Marietta Bautista, Filipino immigrants who have lived next to Rogers and the canyon for four years, said they are sympathetic to the plight of the migrants but have concerns that one of their cooking fires will spark a larger conflagration.

"I'm not against what these guys do because they have to survive," Tony Bautista said. "But where do you stop all this and begin correcting it?"

Looking for balance in the larger national immigration debate, Tony Bautista said he doesn't welcome the media or the protestors. He's afraid all the publicity could negatively impact local property values.

Rogers said he too believes that people living in the canyon is small part of a larger federal issue. He said he thinks the attention should be on securing the nation's borders.

"I think the problem is more dynamic than just this" community, Rogers said.

He didn't expect that the neighborhood would change much in the wake of the protest.

"It will blow over and six months from now there will be two guys, then four guys and then six guys living in the canyon," he said.

Please contact Daniel Strumpf directly with your thoughts, ideas, personal stories or tips. Or send a letter to the editor.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles ... canyon.txt

More than 2,300 homeless agricultural workers, others said to be living in canyons of San Diego County

By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE
June 4, 2006

NANCEE E. LEWIS / Union-Tribune
Romulo Munoz Vasques, 42, (right) and his son, Nicolas Munoz, 20, both migrant day laborers, hiked the hill that leads to his "casa" in one of the Rancho Peñasquitos canyons.

A few steps farther and he's home, in a rural encampment of about a dozen shanties of tarpaulin and plastic sheeting, propped up by wooden poles and hidden beneath a clump of trees. He and his neighbors, mostly low-wage agricultural workers like himself, bathe in a nearby creek and cook their meals on camp stoves, as if civilization were miles away.

For decades now, homeless immigrants, many from southern Mexico, have camped in the region's canyons. Most live in northern and northeastern San Diego County, where agriculture – and more recently development – provides a ready source of jobs.

An estimated 2,300-plus homeless farmworkers, nursery workers, landscapers, day laborers and others – nearly one-fourth of the county's homeless population – live in the county year-round, according to San Diego's Regional Task Force on the Homeless. Many are undocumented, though not all.

It has been almost a dozen years since the city moved roughly 750 people, including families, out of a massive shantytown at the bottom of the canyon where Munoz camps. Many were relocated to affordable housing, and the issue of rural homelessness in the San Diego region quietly faded.

But San Diego's rural homeless never went away, only scattered. At least 200 men live in McGonigle Canyon today in small, isolated encampments. Others live in Carlsbad, Oceanside, Del Mar, Encinitas, Escondido, San Marcos and Poway, according to the task force.

More than 1,000 live in unincorporated areas of the county, where farm work has moved as development claims rural stretches of the coast.

As former farmland gives way to homes, the buffer between rural poverty and suburban affluence has narrowed. Tensions have flared as homeowners, some fueled by the national furor over illegal immigration, lobby local officials to clear out the homeless. In recent weeks, anti-illegal-immigration activists have targeted McGonigle Canyon in hopes of rooting them out, hiking through encampments and crashing nearby day-labor pickup sites.

At the same time, the more land is developed and populated, the harder it is to procure affordable housing for low-wage agricultural workers.

The type of rural homelessness seen in San Diego's canyons isn't new or unique to regions with agricultural industries reliant on low-wage help. Nor is it specifically tied to foreign immigration: During the Dust Bowl flight of the 1930s, homeless “Okies” following the crops camped in the Imperial Valley.

What's unique about the situation in San Diego is that the rural homeless live cheek by jowl with the encroaching development of one of the largest cities in the nation, in one of the most expensive regions to live in.

San Diego is the country's seventh-largest metropolis. It ties with Monterey as the state's third-least affordable housing region, according to the California Association of Realtors. Yet it sits in a county whose agricultural industry ranks 12th in the nation, with nursery crops the top product and more small farms than any county in the United States.

“This is not replicated anywhere else in the country,” said Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. “If you look at the other top 12 agricultural counties in the nation, none of them are urban. We have this built-in conflict. We like to have farming in San Diego County, but our housing prices are beyond the reach of those farmworkers.”

Last summer, the city of San Diego applied for a $3 million state grant to develop affordable farmworker housing near McGonigle Canyon, but has been unable to move forward after three city-owned sites proved inappropriate because of land-use problems.

In Carlsbad, where as many as 500 farmworkers and day laborers are believed to be homeless, two recent attempts to develop housing were thwarted after objections from property owners.

“Farmworker housing? I don't see a place to even get a toehold,” said Sharon Johnson, manager of San Diego's Homeless Services Program. “As the coast is being developed, it closes off entire sections of land. It is the most obstacle-ridden endeavor I have ever been involved with.”

Increasing friction
Unlike urban low-wage workers, agricultural workers in North County tend to work in areas where high-end development is the norm, rentals are scarce and expensive, and public transportation is limited.

For many, it comes down to a choice: spending all they earn on an apartment shared with several others, probably far from work, and paying for rides, or roughing it and saving their earnings to send home to their families.

“The money just doesn't stretch that far,” said Evaristo Lopez, a 25-year-old landscaper from the Mexican state of Oaxaca who lives in McGonigle Canyon and sends most of his pay to his wife and parents.

The encampments in the canyon stand in clusters, mini-villages where many inhabitants come from the same region and speak the same indigenous languages. In the camp where Romulo Munoz lives, the men are Amusgos, natives of a region of Mexico that encompasses parts of Oaxaca and Guerrero.

They share canned meals heated over a camp stove, sitting on wooden crates and homemade hammocks. On weekends, those who lack transportation pay others to take them into town to do laundry and buy groceries. Those who can't get out of the canyon, or who are counting every penny, make do in other ways.

“We wash our clothes in the creek, we bathe in the creek, and sometimes we drink water from the creek,” said Munoz, 42, a former small-town cop from Oaxaca who earns $350 a week picking tomatoes, more than he did back home.

On weekday mornings, they stream out of the canyon past pricey homes to walk to work or wait for rides, then return at the end of the day. Many homeowners complain about homeless individuals hanging around as they wait to be picked up by fellow workers or contractors.

“They bring down our property values,” said homeowner Steve Vealey, adding that several men tend to congregate near his house. “They march right by here. You see this parade of scruffy-looking individuals.”

Residents in the Rancho Peñasquitos area have held community meetings to urge police, city officials and immigration agents to check the homeless men's immigration status and get rid of them. But it's not so easily done.

Police say not all canyon dwellers are in the country illegally. Even for those who are, the area doesn't lie within the Border Patrol's jurisdiction. San Diego police don't check immigration status, in part because it could create a fear of police among immigrants that officers say could hinder their work. Police also say the homeless men haven't presented a serious crime threat.

In many cases, they've been preyed on by thieves, said Boris Martinez, until recently an immigrant liaison officer with the San Diego Police Department. Several were recently robbed by someone who pretended to hire them for day labor.

City code enforcement officials were involved in clearing out the large McGonigle Canyon settlement in 1994. But the situation today is different, said Tony Khalil, acting deputy director of neighborhood code compliance. Code enforcement doesn't normally get involved in routing small homeless encampments like the ones that exist today, he said.

Khalil believes the community itself is partly to blame.

“These people would not be there unless they had jobs,” he said. “The same people who complain about them are the ones who hire them. They want them to disappear at night.”

Perplexing problem
Other agricultural counties have homeless farmworkers, but different rental-market and property-ownership dynamics make for more housing options.

In Fresno, for example, while homeless migrant workers are seen during harvests, housing officials say rents near the fields are affordable enough for many year-round workers to share with several roommates.

In the Napa Valley, which until a few years ago had a large contingent of homeless farmworkers camping along the Napa River, county housing officials were able to negotiate cheap leases from winery owners and open shelters on the land that cost workers a low daily fee.

San Diego County is different from other agricultural areas, including similarly expensive Napa, in that most of the land in the coastal agricultural zone, where homelessness is most visible, is owned by developers who lease to farmers.

“It is not permanently zoned for agriculture,” said Sue Reynolds, chief executive of Community Housing Works, a nonprofit affordable-housing developer involved in relocating families from the former McGonigle Canyon camp. “It is zoned for development. That combination makes it quite challenging.”

Most of San Diego County's farms also are very small, giving farmers little land to spare. Then there's the expense of providing adequate housing, which by law must have proper electrical, water, sewer and other infrastructure.

“Just because it is an option doesn't mean the farmer wants to do it,” Larson said. “There is this expectation that farmers should provide housing, while we are not expecting the landscaping companies or the fast-food restaurants to do the same.”

There are no laws requiring that farmers house workers unless they import labor using the H2A visa, a temporary agricultural nonimmigrant visa that's rarely used locally. According to the Farm Bureau, the only farm in the county known to be using this program is Oceanside vegetable grower Harry Singh and Sons, also one of just a handful of local employers who provide housing.

There's little other permanent affordable housing in the region specifically for agricultural workers, aside from two complexes in San Marcos, one run by the county and one by a faith-based group, and 60 units in Fallbrook operated by Community Housing Works. Those who qualify must prove that a set percentage of their income is derived from farm or nursery work; depending on funding sources, many, including those in county housing, also must prove legal-resident status.

The Interfaith Shelter Network operates temporary winter shelters, and those in Escondido and Oceanside take in farmworkers in addition to other homeless people. Catholic Charities runs two men's shelters in Carlsbad and Calexico.

Recent public attempts to provide farmworker housing have fallen flat. The city of San Diego's project, initiated by council President Scott Peters, who represents the city's coastal areas, has failed to get off the ground because of a lack of suitable, available city land.

In Carlsbad, a city-formed task force, the Carlsbad Farmworker Housing Coordinating Committee, first tried to develop housing on vacant land offered by a grower, but nearby residents complained. Last year, it looked at a business park, but the business owners complained.

Meanwhile, more people keep arriving in the camps. In March, Munoz welcomed his son Nicolas, 20, who now shares his roughly 7-by-7-foot plastic shanty. Maybe in a few years, if they earn enough, they can return to Oaxaca, Munoz said. For now, they'll tough it out in McGonigle Canyon. “Sometimes I think it would be much better to be home with my wife,” Munoz said one Sunday afternoon, as he and his camp mates braced for a spring rainstorm. “But you have to keep trying.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leslie Berestein: (619) 542-4579; leslie.berestein@uniontrib.com

Mexican Migrant Workers
Savagely Attacked by
Racists in San Diego, California

La Voz de Aztlan

July 14, 2000

San Diego, California (July 14, 2000) - Hate crimes against US citizens of Mexican descent and against Mexican migrant workers in San Diego County and throughout the US/Mexico border region are becoming more common as hate groups like Glenn Spencer's "American Patrol", Barbara Coe's "California Coalition for Immigration Reform" and vigilante Roger Barnett's "Arizona Ranchers Alliance" increase their hate rhetoric against Mexicans on the radio, the Internet and various other propaganda mediums. The constant message they are broadcasting is for the purpose of, they say, "waking up America" to the "invasion of Mexican migrants" into the United States and the "conspiracy to take over the US southwest on behalf of the Mexican government."

As was feared by Mexican-American civil and human rights organizations, the racist white supremacist "lunatic fringe" in San Diego, California has now violently acted out on the hate propaganda being disseminated by the leadership of the anti-Mexican groups, increasing the number of vicious attacks of Mexican migrant workers along the 2000 US/Mexico border region.

To Continue see Link .................................................. .

http://www.aztlan.net/lynched.htm

Courage Sleeps in the Canyon
by Jennifer H., San Diego, CA

PRIDE & PREJUDICE

This is my neighborhood: a primarily white middle-class suburb complete with a family-owned ice-cream shop, a YMCA and an outstanding school district. It may seem flawless, but remember, even Pleasantville had problems.

About five years ago, seven high-school students raided a migrant encampment in McGonigle Canyon. With rocks, iron pipes, pitchforks and pellet guns, the teens savagely beat five workers, all of whom were in their late 60s. Just three days before, authorities had found the body of a migrant worker who had been lynched and dragged.

To continue follow link ........................

http://teenink.com/Past/2005/September/19279.html

Housing, Blankets Not Provided for Migrant Farm Workers

A grower who employs many of the migrant workers who were kicked out of Mc Gonigle Canyon says it’s not his responsibility to provide housing. About 175 workers were forced to leave their makeshift camps in the canyon over the weekend. KPBS Reporter Amy Isackson has the story.

The men have been searching for somewhere to sleep since Saturday. Some pick tomatoes for Leslie Farms. Though the season runs through December, Leslie Farms General Manager, Peter Markoff, says the onus is not on him to shelter his workers. He says they choose to live in the canyon so they can save money, instead of paying rent.

Leslie Farms leases fields in Mc Gonigle Canyon year-to-year from developer D.R. Horton. New neighborhoods ring the canyon. Markoff says it’s only a matter of time before they lose their lease to make way for more development. He says therefore, Leslie Farms would lose out if it invested in farm worker housing on that land.

Markoff says the farm has not provided workers with blankets or jackets. But he says they do give workers materials to build makeshift shelters. Amy Isackson, KPBS News.

http://www.kpbs.org/news/local?id=6603

http://www.kpbs.org/news/local?id=6594

http://www.kpbs.org/news/local?id=6587

What are the names of the employers of these people besides Leslie Farms?

Some migrants still in canyon: City offers evicted workers few options

By: EDWARD SIFUENTES - Staff Writer

NORTH COUNTY TIMES
NOVEMBER 25, 2006

They tend lawns, build homes and harvest produce, but the workers that lived in shanties at McGonigle Canyon near Rancho Penasquitos are now homeless and scattered. Again.

Police and landowners blocked the entrance to their canyon homes a week ago, citing concerns over a highly publicized protest by anti-illegal immigrant activists. Most of the workers left last week before the protest on Saturday, police said.

But migrant workers are still camping in the area, immigrant-rights advocates said.


"They are living day to day," Claudia Smith, a longtime advocate of the workers, said Tuesday. "They stay where the night finds them."

City officials announced last summer that the camps would be razed and the migrant workers evicted.

An estimated 300 to 500 workers lived in the canyon camps near Torrey Santa Fe Road and State Route 56. Most toiled in nearby fields, nurseries and construction sites. Many of the products they help harvest are sold in prominent grocery stores throughout southern California.

The camp is one of several areas in North County where migrant workers settle in makeshift shanties. Carlsbad, Oceanside and Poway have also cited residents' complaints about health hazards and crime to remove similar camp sites in recent years.

A months-long attempt to find alternative housing for hundreds of men living in McGonigle Canyon failed, city officials said.

"Homelessness is a problem in San Diego. It's tragic. Nobody lives in a canyon because they want to," said Pam Hardy, a spokeswoman for San Diego City Council President Scott Peters, whose district includes the Rancho Penasquitos area. But "there are no viable options."

Peter's office sought a state grant to build a shelter but was unable to find an adequate piece of land, Hardy said. He sought the help of immigrant rights groups with modest success, and suggested that employers build housing for the migrants; that is unlikely to occur because the growers don't own the land ---- they lease it, she added.

Immigrant rights activists said the workers are taking shelter where they find it. For some, that means bunking with family, for others sharing an apartment, and for others, deeper hiding.

"They are frightened and discouraged," said Jose Gonzalez, a former migrant worker who is now an activist. "Some are starting to go back. Tomatoes are going to be very expensive soon."

Many of the workers are illegal immigrants from Mexico who say they can't afford the high cost of rents in North County. The canyon offered them secluded, inexpensive, communal living. Growers lease land from owners, including developer D.R. Horton, on which to grow tomatoes and other produce.

Growers say the landowners may decide to develop the land at any time; therefore, they are hesitant to invest in building farmworker housing.

The tomato season runs through December and most workers either return to Mexico or move on to other agricultural areas, Gonzalez said. But housing problems for migrant workers is not new to the area.

In the late 1980s, entire families lived in shacks made of wood and plastic tarps. In the mid-1990s, most of the families were moved out of the canyon and into apartments by nonprofit agencies, activists and city officials.

Despite new residential developments and shrinking farmland, migrant workers, predominantly single men, continued to live at the bottom of the canyon.

New housing developments brought their camps and million-dollar homes too close for comfort.

Critics, including some Rancho Penasquitos residents, say the camps attract crime, drug pushers and prostitution. They say they collected dozens of bags filled with trash during a recent cleanup effort. Without running water, the migrant workers use a stream at the bottom of the canyon for water to bathe, wash clothes and cook, critics say.

Some area residents and anti-illegal immigrant activists said they were frustrated by what they said was city officials' inaction. They staged a cleanup effort to call attention to the camps. A TV news report on the camps, which included a hidden-camera video of men drinking, led to last Saturday's angry protest.

Police say crime in the canyon is no more prevalent than in any other part of the city.

Activists said there were about 150 workers at the time of last week's protest. Churches in the area have been helping to provide meals for the men, said Enrique Morones, who heads a migrant rights group called the Border Angels.

The group started a food and blankets drive for the migrants.

Morones said his group has been working with city officials trying to find better housing for the workers. He said the group has managed to find some apartments outside Rancho Penasquitos, but there are not many affordable apartments in the area, where the men can live close to work.

"Some people will be homeless" this holiday season. "Latinos and non-Latinos alike," Morones said.

For migrant workers living in North County camps, evictions have become routine, advocates said. Each winter, shanties have been razed in Rancho Penasquitos and Carlsbad. Morones and other activists said the problem will persist until the federal government reforms its immigration laws.

"It will continue to go in cycles, until we have the immigration situation resolved," he said.

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11 ... ogcomments

"It will continue to go in cycles, until we have the immigration situation resolved," he said.

I find this very difficult to understand.

It's NOT an immigration problem! It's an ILLEGAL alien / invasion problem. There is a big difference.

Those that are legal residents or Americans should be taken care of one way or the other. Homeless shelters, etc.

Those that are ILLEGAL should simply be sent back and this wouldn't exist.

What am I missing

Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis

"It will continue to go in cycles, until we have the immigration situation resolved," he said.

I find this very difficult to understand.

It's NOT an immigration problem! It's an ILLEGAL alien / invasion problem. There is a big difference.

Those that are legal residents or Americans should be taken care of one way or the other. Homeless shelters, etc.

Those that are ILLEGAL should simply be sent back and this wouldn't exist.

What am I missing

I think you are missing the liberal gene 2ndsis