Post by Freehold Resident on Aug 4, 2006 8:44:13 GMT -5
The Urban Migrants
Published: July 20, 2005
(Page 2 of 2)
Accordingly, Freehold has become a nationally recognized hot spot in the immigration debate. In April, the United Patriots of America, a group that recruits what it calls minutemen to locate and report illegal immigrants, was blocked by protesters from holding a meeting in Freehold. When it tried to reconvene at a nearby sports arena in June, dozens of protesters showed up. Police in SWAT gear stood by.
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Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times
Sister Margaret Rose Smyth, a Roman Catholic nun, helps immigrant workers on Long Island.
One point of contention is the formalization and public financing of locations where day laborers gather to get employment from contractors who increasingly rely on them for spot work like painting, roofing and marble cutting. Advocates of immigrant rights are petitioning municipalities to pay for these formal hiring centers - which may vary from a large tent with a portable toilet to an air-conditioned trailer to a whole building - to address the complaints of loitering and littering and the danger of workers chasing after vans.
"Day laborer sites are the visible face of the immigration issue," said Pablo Alvarado, a former day laborer who now runs the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, an umbrella organization for such work sites. "One hundred men in the street is a very real thing."
But proponents of immigration control argue that formal hiring centers amount to an official sanctioning of illegal labor that will only draw more workers to an area, creating inevitable overflows and a return to street corner congregations.
In Jupiter, Fla., a popular destination for homeowners fleeing north from the sprawl of South Florida, construction permits have increased 50 percent in the last two years. Not coincidentally, so many day laborers have come to the area in recent years that the town is moving forward with plans for a municipally financed hiring center.
"I call it an illegal hiring hall," said John Slattery, a mortgage broker who founded Jupiter Neighbors Against Illegal Labor in response to what he said has been an influx of 5,000 illegal immigrants over the last three years. "We're talking about a sleepy little town here that now has an illegal barrio with drugs and gangs," he said. "Now, the government wants to facilitate it instead of stopping it."
Similar debates are taking place in the Washington metropolitan area, where, according to the National Association of Realtors, the median price for a single-family home surged 22.7 percent into the first quarter of this year. A survey commissioned last year by Fairfax County in Northern Virginia found that at least 80 percent of the area's day laborers, not all of them illegal, were doing construction work.
"There's a boom in construction here and willing" workers, said Gustavo Torres, who heads Casa de Maryland, a hiring site in another Washington suburb, Takoma Park, Md. "It's a perfect match."
The county has reserved nearly $400,000 for at least three new day labor sites. In Herndon, Va., about 30 miles west of Washington, day laborers have been gathering in the parking lot of a local 7-Eleven store. Town officials are now considering a proposal for a formal site with restrooms, parking for contractors and even English classes and social services for men who do not get hired in the morning.
"Our tax money should be used to protect our borders," said Dennis Baughan, a realtor and retired schoolteacher in Herndon who has organized a group of 150 residents opposed to the day laborer hiring centers. "If you build a formal site it sends a message to Mexico and South America to show up."
Mr. Baughan said that he had observed the Casa de Maryland center numerous times. The site, he said, typically assists 70 laborers a day, but he said he had seen 500 men soliciting construction jobs on the streets surrounding it. "That will happen here, too," he said.
The economic rewards of construction-related day labor are obvious. Workers who have known the instability of agricultural wages and tip-driven food delivery say they can clear $500 in cash on good weeks; higher-skilled laborers, like tile cutters and electricians, earn more. In addition, construction work often lasts for several weeks, and subcontractors tend to reward the best workers with repeat job offers. Mr. Alvarado said that while visiting gathering spots in the Chicago and Atlanta area, he saw police officers parking their cars in front of sites and ticketing laborers for jaywalking and littering. "They basically do this to discourage the men from showing up," he said. "Where are their civil rights?"
A recent survey of day labor in the Washington area by the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that more than half of workers questioned reported that they had been cheated out of wages and one-quarter reported being injured on a job.
Sister Margaret of the North Fork Spanish Apostolate said she has a "logjam" of cases of laborers not being paid. She carries a box of more than 40 reports of abuse, like a contractor who slaps his workers and bosses who deduct sums as "taxes" that they then pocket.
Sister Margaret says she worries that she is only seeing a fraction of the true total. "Many of the men," she says, "would rather tolerate abuse and injury than get deported."
Published: July 20, 2005
(Page 2 of 2)
Accordingly, Freehold has become a nationally recognized hot spot in the immigration debate. In April, the United Patriots of America, a group that recruits what it calls minutemen to locate and report illegal immigrants, was blocked by protesters from holding a meeting in Freehold. When it tried to reconvene at a nearby sports arena in June, dozens of protesters showed up. Police in SWAT gear stood by.
Skip to next paragraph
Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times
Sister Margaret Rose Smyth, a Roman Catholic nun, helps immigrant workers on Long Island.
One point of contention is the formalization and public financing of locations where day laborers gather to get employment from contractors who increasingly rely on them for spot work like painting, roofing and marble cutting. Advocates of immigrant rights are petitioning municipalities to pay for these formal hiring centers - which may vary from a large tent with a portable toilet to an air-conditioned trailer to a whole building - to address the complaints of loitering and littering and the danger of workers chasing after vans.
"Day laborer sites are the visible face of the immigration issue," said Pablo Alvarado, a former day laborer who now runs the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, an umbrella organization for such work sites. "One hundred men in the street is a very real thing."
But proponents of immigration control argue that formal hiring centers amount to an official sanctioning of illegal labor that will only draw more workers to an area, creating inevitable overflows and a return to street corner congregations.
In Jupiter, Fla., a popular destination for homeowners fleeing north from the sprawl of South Florida, construction permits have increased 50 percent in the last two years. Not coincidentally, so many day laborers have come to the area in recent years that the town is moving forward with plans for a municipally financed hiring center.
"I call it an illegal hiring hall," said John Slattery, a mortgage broker who founded Jupiter Neighbors Against Illegal Labor in response to what he said has been an influx of 5,000 illegal immigrants over the last three years. "We're talking about a sleepy little town here that now has an illegal barrio with drugs and gangs," he said. "Now, the government wants to facilitate it instead of stopping it."
Similar debates are taking place in the Washington metropolitan area, where, according to the National Association of Realtors, the median price for a single-family home surged 22.7 percent into the first quarter of this year. A survey commissioned last year by Fairfax County in Northern Virginia found that at least 80 percent of the area's day laborers, not all of them illegal, were doing construction work.
"There's a boom in construction here and willing" workers, said Gustavo Torres, who heads Casa de Maryland, a hiring site in another Washington suburb, Takoma Park, Md. "It's a perfect match."
The county has reserved nearly $400,000 for at least three new day labor sites. In Herndon, Va., about 30 miles west of Washington, day laborers have been gathering in the parking lot of a local 7-Eleven store. Town officials are now considering a proposal for a formal site with restrooms, parking for contractors and even English classes and social services for men who do not get hired in the morning.
"Our tax money should be used to protect our borders," said Dennis Baughan, a realtor and retired schoolteacher in Herndon who has organized a group of 150 residents opposed to the day laborer hiring centers. "If you build a formal site it sends a message to Mexico and South America to show up."
Mr. Baughan said that he had observed the Casa de Maryland center numerous times. The site, he said, typically assists 70 laborers a day, but he said he had seen 500 men soliciting construction jobs on the streets surrounding it. "That will happen here, too," he said.
The economic rewards of construction-related day labor are obvious. Workers who have known the instability of agricultural wages and tip-driven food delivery say they can clear $500 in cash on good weeks; higher-skilled laborers, like tile cutters and electricians, earn more. In addition, construction work often lasts for several weeks, and subcontractors tend to reward the best workers with repeat job offers. Mr. Alvarado said that while visiting gathering spots in the Chicago and Atlanta area, he saw police officers parking their cars in front of sites and ticketing laborers for jaywalking and littering. "They basically do this to discourage the men from showing up," he said. "Where are their civil rights?"
A recent survey of day labor in the Washington area by the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that more than half of workers questioned reported that they had been cheated out of wages and one-quarter reported being injured on a job.
Sister Margaret of the North Fork Spanish Apostolate said she has a "logjam" of cases of laborers not being paid. She carries a box of more than 40 reports of abuse, like a contractor who slaps his workers and bosses who deduct sums as "taxes" that they then pocket.
Sister Margaret says she worries that she is only seeing a fraction of the true total. "Many of the men," she says, "would rather tolerate abuse and injury than get deported."