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Disputed Southampton Day Laborer Park May Become A FarmThursday, February 24, 2011, by Ian Ratner
Going back to 2007, Aldrich Lane Park, which sits just outside Southampton Village on—you guessed it!—Aldrich lane, was pretty infamous. Why's that? Because the village allowed its $1.6 million purchase "to be used as a hiring site for day laborers," which ultimately left neighbors and the town so angry that they filed a lawsuit. Well now what should the village do with the six-acre swath of land? How about farm it! The Southampton Press reports that a farmer, who just lost his land in Bridgehampton, already offered the village $870 per year to get some crops growing. The parkland apparently has "the best soil for farming," so other proposed uses, like a dog park or basketball courts, seem unwarranted.
 Roberto Pareja waits for work on a chilly October morning. Photo: Yiting Sun At 7:15 on a chilly October morning, a 33-year-old Mexican immigrant leaned against the shuttered door of Kennedy Fried Chicken, a worn-out backpack filled with wrenches and tape lay next to his feet. Roberto Pareja positioned himself across the street from the Benjamin Moore paint store in East Tremont as he had done nearly every day for years, hoping one of the contractors leaving the store would hire him. Two hours later it began to rain, and the father of two ducked under a deli storefront. None of the customers needed his help that day, nor the help of 20 other day laborers waiting with him. But he did not want to leave. For Pareja, no work meant worrying about his $960 monthly rent, food for the six people in his family, and dolls for his young girls. Pareja is one of almost 100 day laborers who have congregated for years on the corner of East 180th Street and Third Avenue. On a nice sunny day, almost all of them will gather, but on this rainy morning, only 20 tried their luck. The New York Immigration Coalition estimates there are about 10,000 day laborers in the city. Some of them have been in the underground labor pool for years. Others are newcomers driven here by the recession. “There is less work this year than last year,” said Corinne Beth, an immigration lawyer that supports day laborers on behalf of the Westchester Hispanic Coalition, a not-for-profit organization. She added that with the group of day laborers she helps in Portchester, if five out of the 30 men get work in a given week, they are lucky. Even though the National Bureau of Economic Research declared an official end to the recession in September, the day laborers’ predicament is far from over. “The recession hits day laborers harder than it does people with full-time work,” said Lynn Svensson, director of the Day Laborer Research Institute. Of the estimated 260,000 individuals working as day laborers in the United States, approximately 75 percent are undocumented immigrants, according to “On the Corner,” a study by the University of California at Los Angeles in 2006. The study found that their immigration status and the lack of English skills are the biggest impediments in finding more stable work. Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of day laborers at this spot has increased, said Bob Ascat, the paint store manager who has seen them for the last decade. Local contractors drive by the corner looking for workers to assist in construction work. For a worker who does not have a business relationship with a contractor, he relies on customers from the paint store who have home projects to complete. But the work available for them has decreased as more people compete for a shrinking pie. In 2009, the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization, reported that the unemployment rate for foreign-born Hispanics in the fourth quarter of 2008 was 8 percent, a 3-point increase from the same period in 2007. Although immigration status was not recorded for the report, the center estimates that undocumented immigrants account for about five percent of the U.S. labor force. In certain industries such as construction, which is the primary industry for day laborers, undocumented immigrants account for 12 percent of employment. Most undocumented immigrants are from Latin American countries, with 55 percent coming from Mexico. “Life is difficult,” said Pareja, who emigrated to the United States from Mexico eight years ago. “There are times when you don’t find work, and even more now that things have gotten harder.” His family is still suffering from the recession’s consequences. A month ago his wife started selling Mexican tamales by the dozen to acquaintances with the hope of earning the family an additional $150 a week. When there is no work, Pareja supports his family with savings and relies on his father-in-law, who assists him in some projects, to pick up half of the rent when necessary. Every single workday counts for him because coworkers may learn of his skills and recommend him for contract jobs. A week after that chilly Monday morning, Pareja found a contract job with the help of a friend he met through work. He would earn $450 a week for six weeks remodeling apartments on 1st Ave near 60th St in Manhattan. But work comes sporadically for Pareja, who may have a week with only two to three days of work, other weeks nothing. “No one can survive on that,” said Svensson. “ Bosses are paying less now, their wages have actually gone down.” There are also day laborers in the underground economy who may not get paid for days and even weeks of work when contractors use a person’s immigration status as an excuse to withhold payment. “They threaten you with sending immigration, and you can’t turn somewhere else for help,” he said. “Day laborers are often the targets of exploitation,” Svensson added. “They are often paid less than they were promised, or not paid at all for their work, and told by employers that if they call the police that they will be turned in to immigration.” What makes the situation worse is day laborers often do not know enough about their rights. “They have no sense of empowerment,” said Beth. Other day laborers in this Bronx intersection have also been cheated out of money by dishonest contractors. According to the UCLA study, 54 percent of day laborers in the Eastern United States have not been paid for their work. In a more recent study released this past summer, the Seton Hall University School of Law surveyed 26 day laborers (approximately half of the workers) at the corner of Stockton Street and Wilson Avenue in Newark. Ninety-six percent of day laborers at this East Ward intersection, located less than 40 minutes from the Bronx, reported instances of nonpayment or underpayment from contractors. These regional and local reports exceed the 48 percent reported nationally for day laborers who have lost wages, and in Newark the majority of them have lost $800 or more. “They have accepted wage theft as a cost of doing business,” said Bryan Lonagan, a Seton Hall law professor who oversaw the Newark study. “There really isn’t an effective avenue for them right now to bring a wage complaint.” Bronx day laborer Jose Balquiera understands the frustration of losing $800 of wages. After only a few months in New York City, the 28-year-old lost two weeks and $1,000 when a contractor did not pay him for remodeling an apartment. The person who hired him dismissed any discussion of payment from the beginning, simply saying he would pay him on Saturday, then telling him another day. “Sometimes they don’t show their face,” Balquiera said, scanning the street for cars pulling up. “They give you their numbers but they don’t answer to not pay you.” The Toluca, Mexico native has been in the United States for a year, and feels overwhelmed by the language barrier, which often causes day laborers even more fear to enforce their rights. “It feels really bad,” said Balquiera in Spanish of not being able to defend himself when he encounters contractors that do not want to pay. “Imagine, they talk to you in English and you don’t understand.” Wage theft in New York City amounts to an estimated $1 billion across all low-wage industries, according to the National Employment Law Project. Passed last month in legislature, the New York Wage Theft Prevention Act calls for stricter penalties and the enforcement of laws meant to protect workers.Although this provides an added resource for workers, the Newark study suggests day laborers are vulnerable to wage theft because they have limited English skills and they fear complaining to the authorities due to their immigration status. “Most of them expressed fear of the police reporting them to immigration and customs enforcement for possible removal,” Lonagan said of the lack of police involvement. Lonagan added that if a day laborer submitted a dispute through small claims court, it could take almost a year before the claim was just recognized. The day laborers choose then to seek work to make up the lost money instead of spending days in the process. Although Bronx day laborers may not seek formal assistance in cases of labor abuse, these workers look out for each other even as they compete for jobs. Demaso Genis said he makes an effort to point out crooked contractors who have stiffed him in the past when  they return to the intersection. He wants to make sure others are not exploited and left at construction sites without payment. “There’s no way to reclaim that money,” he said. “No one is interested in lending us a hand.” Genis said even when contractors actually do pay, every day there is someone different who promises a specific salary only to actually pay less. The 47-year-old left his wife and two children in Morelos, Mexico more than a decade ago. He said even when the recession might have ended for others, supporting the family is still a struggle for him. The day laborers support each other in whatever possible ways. Photo: Yiting Sun “There are weeks that you can’t even send $50,” he said of this variable work that pays him an average of $80 a day when there’s work. Remittances to Mexico dropped 20.4 percent from February 2008 to February 2010, according to BBVA Research, a global finance company. After 17 consecutive months of falling remittances, April offered an increase of less then a percentage point. Although remittances continued to increase at a small rate, the improvement slowed in September, and it’s not expected to reach more than two points based on the outlook of the United States economy. As a result, these day laborers live on as little as possible to send as much money as they can to families in their native countries. Balquiera lives with 11 other men in a four-bedroom apartment, where his portion of the monthly rent is $120. “When I do find work, I send money; when I don’t…” he stopped and shrugged off the rest of the answer. “It’s difficult here.” Before the recession hit, day laborers had less competition and more work. With more money to send home, their families invested the money they received in education, businesses and new houses. After almost 20 years of sending money to his wife and six children in his native Acapulco, Mexico, Cornelio Hernandez, 63, now has his own house in Mexico and is currently putting his youngest daughter through college. “Everything is done with sacrifice,” he said of not seeing his family for almost two decades. “We come to this country to suffer, to become something.” Hernandez’s time in New York City has paid off. He is solicited by contractors throughout the city because of the reputation of his work. For the past few summers, a real estate agent has hired Hernandez to work in City Island for the upward sum of $110 a day to remodel apartments. His tired eyes light up and his smile widens when he talks about his children’s professional pursuits. This winter Hernandez is prepared for more than the harsh winter. According to Svensson, there is less work for day laborers from November to the end of February. Contractors focus mostly on indoor projects such as painting and installing floors. Pareja said his current contract job is helping him save for those winter months. He still hopes this job could lead to the next so he does not have to spend hours waiting for work in the snow. “We try to do things as best as possible,” he said with his one-year-old daughter on his lap in his home. “If your boss likes your work, he can give you more work.” © 2011 The Bronx Ink | Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Most Ironbound Day Laborers Report Being Cheated
July 27, 2010 By KIRK SEMPLE Nearly all day laborers who gather for work in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark have had employers who have either paid them less than promised or not paid them at all, according to a Seton Hall University report on wage theft and workplace conditions among day laborers. In addition, despite New Jersey state laws that grant day laborers the same legal protections that apply to all workers, the vast majority of day laborers in the Ironbound say that employers have failed to provide them with safety equipment, and at least 20 percent say they have been injured on the job, said the report, which is scheduled to be released Tuesday. “Our findings demonstrate a staggering degree of workplace violations and exploitation of day laborers by local employers in violation of federal and state law, resulting in a loss of dignity for the day laborer population and a loss of revenue to the public,” said the study’s authors, a group of professors and students at the Immigrant Workers’ Rights Clinic at the Seton Hall School of Law. The report joins a growing body of research into the lives of day laborers, widely regarded as among the most economically vulnerable workers. Many are illegal immigrants, are frequently subjected to workplace abuses and rarely seek recourse from law enforcement officials or the courts, either because they are ignorant of their rights or they fear deportation. Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Los Angeles, said in an interview that a decreasing demand for laborers amid the economic downturn, coupled with “pronounced anti-immigrant sentiment and the perception that immigrants have less rights,” has made day laborers even more vulnerable to workplace abuses. He said the Seton Hall study was the first new day laborer report he had seen since the recession. Another local study is under way in Seattle, he said, and other reports were completed before the recession in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Tex., and Washington. The Seton Hall researchers said their report was intended to help “fill the gap” of inadequate local data, a dearth that has contributed to a failure on the part of state and local government agencies to investigate workplace violations and enforce labor laws on behalf of day laborers. The study, called “Ironbound Underground: Wage Theft and Workplace violations Among Day Laborers in Newark’s East End,” was based on interviews in the spring with 26 laborers, or about half of the population of workers who regularly gather at a shape-up site in the Ironbound section, a working- and middle-class neighborhood with a large immigrant population, many of Brazilian and Portuguese nationality or descent. The report found that 96 percent of the workers reported that they had experienced at least one case of wage theft. Some 88 percent reported that employers had failed to pay them overtime wages, as required by state and federal laws; 77 percent had been victims of underpayment of regular-hour wages; and 62 percent had employers who refused to pay them on at least one occasion. These findings showed a higher incidence of wage violations than those revealed in the National Day Labor Study, a comprehensive 2006 survey of day laborers around the country, which found that 48 percent of day laborers in the United States reported underpayment of wages and that 49 percent said they had been completely denied payment of wages on at least one occasion. The Seton Hall researchers also found that 27 percent of the laborers had been assaulted at least once by employers or their representatives. Among its recommendations, the report urged the New Jersey Department of Labor to step up its prosecution of employers who cheat day laborers by designating a special agent to investigate the workers’ claims, help them recover unpaid wages and coordinate with law enforcement agencies to prosecute labor law violators.
The Business of Human Smuggling on the Mexican Border How to move migrants and avoid the wrath of drug cartels and the Mexican army. By Sacha Feinman Slate: Dispatches
Part1: Sniffing Out the Real Migrants
Aug. 19, 2009 ALTAR, Mexico—I hadn't yet taken 10 steps off the bus when I made eye contact with someone for the first time. "Are you going north?" he hissed, walking quickly toward me. "Let's go. Let's go," he implored. A strange way to be welcomed someplace, no doubt, though the question is the only one of any real import here, and it often takes the place of a proper greeting. Sitting just 60 miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, Altar, in Sonora state, is a place unlike any other. Once a quiet community of farmers and ranchers, this dusty desert town of 8,000 is now one of the most important staging points for the movement of undocumented workers. Migrants from all over Mexico and various Central and South American countries come here to find a guide who will take them through the dangerous desert crossing and into the United States. The entire economy of Altar is based on the business of human smuggling. Rows of shops sell all the materials necessary for the border crossing. Backpacks, canned goods, and electrolyte-infused soft drinks are sold everywhere. Headhunters who work for the town's coyotes pass the day looking for new customers. Their job is to spot Altar's newest arrivals and sell them on a guide who knows the way into Arizona. They are fast talkers and hustlers, willing to promise anything to drum up business. It is a disorienting sensation, arriving in Altar. The town feels like something out of an old Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western. When you step into the central plaza, dozens of strangers assess you, wondering what exactly you are doing here, while contemplating the ways a profit might be generated off your presence. A bodega selling cold beer and potato chips only adds to the effect; it features a slot machine that plays the theme music of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly over and over again. During the hot spring and summer months, most business transactions take place during the morning hours. By the time I arrive, it is 3 in the afternoon, and the plaza has nearly emptied out for the day. Dogs lie about on patches of cracked earth, too lazy to react to the flies that blanket them. Migrants sit under what little shade they can find, clutching their backpacks and staring off into the horizon. They are waiting. Maybe they are short of the money needed to pay for the trip and are hoping for a family member to arrange a wire transfer. Perhaps their guide told them that the Border Patrol is out in force today and it is best to wait until tomorrow. This is the pattern of life here. For the migrants in Altar, passing the time in silence, preferably in one of the few patches of shade, is the day's main activity. Some even sleep in the plaza, though others prefer to pay rent at one of the town's flophouses. More plentiful and affordable than motels, they are communal rooms densely packed with rows of bunk beds. A migrant's 40 pesos ($3) rents a piece of plywood and a tattered blanket rather than a proper mattress. With my bags in tow, I make my way to the Community Center for the Assistance of Migrants and the Needy (in Spanish, Centro Comunitario de Atención al Migrante y Necesitado). CCAMYN is Altar's only free shelter. It is supported by the local church and run by Marcos Burruel, a remarkable man who once worked as a quality-control supervisor at the Tecate beer factory in Baja, Mexico. He was charged with smelling each batch of the freshly brewed product to ensure that nothing was off. One profession would seem to have little to do with the other, though Marcos found the common link. As he explains it, "There are many different types of people who come through Altar and this shelter. There are the very good, the good, the normal, the bad, and the very bad. My job is to determine who is who and to protect the people that need my help." Marcos never turns away anyone who comes asking for a free meal. But visitors looking to spend the night and enjoy the comfort of a real mattress and an actual bed sheet must first make it past his discerning nose. A migrant's first stop upon arrival at the shelter is a wobbly plastic chair in front of Marcos' desk. Other than a crucifix hanging from the far wall, the room is free of decoration. In quick succession, Marcos asks his guests a series of questions. Name, age, marital status, and hometown are all registered before he delves deeper. "Did you already try to cross? Yes? And the Border Patrol caught you and shipped you back? How many people were in your group? What was the cost of your guide? And the narcos … how steep was the tax—how much did you pay them before you were allowed to leave Altar? What about the driver who drove you up to the border—how much did he charge?" Marcos knows the answers to each of these questions before he asks them. How his guest responds, however, allows him to differentiate between a migrant in need of help and a lying stranger, someone who has come to the shelter with an ulterior motive. It also presents a great opportunity for me to learn how Altar works. The first man Marcos interviewed went by the name Orlando, and he didn't conform to the migrant stereotype. Sporting a gold tooth and an expensive-looking watch on his left wrist, he answered every question confidently. Nevertheless, he was told he could only stay for dinner. After Orlando left the room, Marcos explained. "He's a coyote, here looking for customers," he said. "I try never to turn away anyone who asks me for food, but he definitely will not spend the night." Next up was Jose. Born in the state of Hidalgo, he claimed to have been caught and deported by Border Patrol that very day. "And how much was the tax you had to pay the narcos?" Jose was confused. "What tax?" he asked. "The narcos, the mafia ... no one gets in those vans if they don't pay the tax first. How much did you have to pay them?" Jose looked at his feet, and after a pause, responded. "Five hundred pesos," he answered cautiously. His response was a question as much it was a statement. Marcos shook his head, sure that a real migrant who had crossed recently would know that the tax is much higher. "You'll have to leave after dinner," he said. Antonio followed, and it was instantly clear that he was the real thing. An older man carrying a beat-up backpack, he had a week's worth of stubble and walked with a pronounced limp. The question-and-answer session seemed to be going well, until Marcos paused, leaning forward slightly. "And how many beers did you drink today?" he finally asked. Antonio was clearly startled. "None," he replied. "With respect, I know you've been drinking today. How many beers?" "I haven't had anything to drink," Antonio reiterated. "Listen. It's a rule. You can't have alcohol in your body and stay here. I have an incredible sense of smell. It's a gift, and I thank God for it every day. I can smell beer on your breath. I know you've been drinking. Just tell me: How much have you had to drink today?" Antonio relented. "Two beers," he said, "I've had two beers today." "Well, then," answered Marcos, "I'm sorry, but you can't stay the night." Of the six men he who filed through, only one was given permission to sleep at the shelter. "We don't have many resources; we have to be selective about who we help," Marcos would later explain. "I have to protect those who need protection, and I have to offer help only to those who are truly migrants. Those are the people this shelter is meant for. It's not too difficult to spot a real migrant. He will come here with his backpack, he'll be dirty, and he will have trouble walking, all because of the desert. And he'll tell you that all he wants is to go home, that he doesn't want anything more to do with the United States." After a quiet dinner, I am shown to the dormitory. The sun has set, and Marcos is preparing to leave. The shelter has no room in the budget to hire a night watchman, so guests are locked inside until sunrise. As I lay on my bed, three additional guests are admitted. They file in quickly, the door closing behind them. No one makes eye contact or acknowledges anyone else's presence. Everyone keeps one hand on their bags as they drift off to sleep. The bed is clean, if a bit uncomfortable. A single spring pokes upward from the middle of the mattress. Trying to avoid it, I sleep on my side. It's a battle fought in vain, though; an unfortunate shift results in a sharp stab to my lower back. The sleep had been shallow and uneasy, anyway, and I am now fully awake. There is no clock on the wall, but the window frames a pitch-black desert night, the sky clear and filled with stars. It must be about 3 a.m. The room is rather cramped, mostly because of the number of bunk beds stacked together. One of the migrants snores loudly. He fills the rooms with the sound of a motorcycle failing to start again and again. In the bed next to me, another migrant is masturbating underneath his blanket. With his climax, he releases a deep sigh, sounding as though a priest has just exorcised him. I lie on my back, allowing the spring to dig into me. I'll just have to wait out the rest of the night. There is no use going back to sleep after witnessing a thing like that.
Part2: Waiting for the Right Guide
Aug. 20, 2009
ALTAR, Mexico—Breakfast is a simple affair at the CCAMYN shelter: a cup of coffee and a doughnut before we leave. The doors are locked for most of the day, reopening again at 5 p.m. The guests scatter in all directions, but most eventually make their way to the central plaza where they wait the day out. It's 7:30 in the morning, and Altar is just waking up. Pickup trucks with darkly tinted windows slowly make their way down the unpaved streets, stirring dirt into the desert air. Wild dogs stand guard in front of the neighboring houses, growling at passers-by. There is so much paranoia in a town where the entire economy is built around smuggling people and drugs across international borders. Even though it gives off the impression of being a sleepy desert town, there is never any doubt that if you cross paths with the wrong people in Altar, things can go wrong very, very quickly. The three men who arrived at the shelter late the night before are walking behind me, and I drop back to strike up a conversation with them. They are quick to introduce themselves, shaking hands while making direct eye contact. This will prove to be a rarity during my stay in Altar, especially among the migrant population. It is a strange thing to introduce yourself to the man who made his first impression by masturbating next to you in the early morning hours. He has a sweet, boyish smile, which immediately puts me at ease. He is tall and wears a clean, unwrinkled shirt tucked into his jeans. A small crucifix dangles from his neck, made visible by three open buttons. His name is Uvaldo. Introductions are made, and I explain myself to the group. It's a story I will tell again and again over the course of two weeks: I am a journalist, here to collect migrants' stories. Where are they from, where are they going, how will they cross the border, what work will they look for in the United States? This is as much a security measure as it is an act of disclosure; Mexico's infamous drug cartels are well-represented in Altar, and my explanation serves as a pre-emptive strike to keep people from accusing me of sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. The three men had been strangers until a week ago. They met while staying at a flophouse in Sonoyta, farther to the west. They were unimpressed with the guides they met there. They just hadn't felt right, so they took a bus to Altar, where Jesus, the natural leader of the group, knew of a guide reputed to be trustworthy. All three were born in southern Mexico, and they had come to trust one another for the simple purpose of self-preservation. In a place where everyone is sizing you up, trying to find a way to profit from you, it's good to have someone watching your back. In the plaza, we find a shaded bench under the tall wall of the town church. Two pushcart vendors sell instant coffee and homemade tamales to the crowd of would-be migrants. Headhunters wearing cowboy boots and baseball caps walk by, talking on their cell phones and eyeballing us. They are looking for a signal of some kind, a sign that we are open to their sales pitch. Business is slow, and they are desperate to bring in clients for their coyote bosses. As we sit there, watching the town's business transpire, Uvaldo starts to rifle through his bag. "Have you read this?" he asks, "A friend gave it to me. It's practice for my English." Eventually he brings out a tattered paperback, passing it to me gently, as though it were a full cup of coffee. Uvaldo's copy of Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life is heavily underlined and features a picture of his infant daughter taped to the inside cover. My experience in extraordinary locales has taught me that in an environment like Altar, expectations are often subverted. Once, while touring a notorious slum in Buenos Aires, a young teenager stuck a gun in my face and yanked my camera bag from my shoulder. A woman who had accompanied me on the trip immediately stepped in front of the gun, yelling at the boy that his mother would be ashamed if she could see what he was doing to a visitor. His eyes turned glassy, and he handed back my camera bag, literally begging for forgiveness as he backed away. On another assignment, I spent a week in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, home to one of the world's most notorious black markets, as well as a small Muslim community that the U.S. government has repeatedly accused of funneling money to Hezbollah. On my last day in town, I met a wholesale drug dealer, a man who claimed to move hundreds of pounds of marijuana across the Brazilian and Argentine borders on a regular basis. We were discussing the market rate of his goods when he suddenly stopped to ask me my last name. I had lied earlier, introducing myself with a false name, but this question caught me off guard, and I blurted out my real surname. He smiled reflexively, bringing a Star of David necklace from his back pocket. I can't help but think of both incidents as Uvaldo and I discuss Warren's philosophy. He is particularly fond of the chapter titled "You Are Not an Accident." Underlined and starred is a passage that reads, "If there was no God, we would all be 'accidents,' the result of astronomical random chance in the universe. You could stop reading this book, because life would have no purpose or meaning or significance. … But there is a God who made you for a reason, and your life has profound meaning!" I ask Uvaldo what the passage means to him. "There are people there in the U.S. who think that I want to live there forever. But that is not the case. No! Life is too short. I want to be with my daughter here in Mexico; I only want to provide for her. That is the purpose of my life, and this trip is not an accident." Slowly, the hours pass, though we barely move, shifting only with the shade as morning becomes afternoon. Uvaldo, Jesus, and Juan, the third member of the group, huddle up and whisper. From time to time, they cross the street to a phone booth. They call family. They call the friend who recommended the guide, trying to coordinate where and when they will meet him. By 1:30, the pushcarts are gone, and the plaza has emptied out. We wait, and we wait, and we wait. We smoke a cigarette, we enter the church to seek the Virgin Mary's blessing, and we wait. The whole experience appears unremarkable. Nothing happens. And yet lives and futures hang in the balance. Institutions larger than any group of individuals all operate independently along the border, and a successful crossing depends on their accidental coordination, on a migrant setting out at the lucky moment when the stars happen to align. Uvaldo and his friends must first find a guide they are comfortable with. That accomplished, they travel the unpaved desert road that connects Altar to the physical border, 60 miles to the north. On certain days, the Mexican military will set up an outpost halfway up the road, stopping all traffic to demand a bribe. Guides have a habit of delaying their trips when this happens. Once the border is reached, the guides choose their routes carefully, desperate not to cross paths with the ever-present narcotraffickers moving marijuana and cocaine. There is no sure way to know the movements of the U.S. Border Patrol, but scouts working for the coyotes are posted at certain vantage points. They keep an eye out, radioing in the best moments to risk the crossing. And there is still the desert to contend with; forecasts of a summer heat wave or a winter cold spell can speed up or indefinitely delay even the best-laid plans. Some migrants arrive in Altar and are gone in less than 24 hours. Others find themselves stranded for a week, 10 days, with nothing to do but pass time in the empty plaza, listening to the cries of the ice cream vendor selling coconut popsicles for 10 pesos. Uvaldo, Jesus, and Juan sit in purgatory, waiting for elements beyond their control to come together so that they can move toward the promise of the north. They go through their equipment, triple-checking that they have all the supplies they need. Two gallons of water and four tins of tuna apiece. A can of deodorant, a toothbrush, and a razor—a migrant must look fresh upon arrival, or the just-completed journey will be obvious. A belt with all of the group's crucial phone numbers etched into the leather on the inside. Scraps of paper have a habit of falling out of pockets on long hikes through the desert. A jug of water stuffed with cloves of garlic. Soaking your feet in the resulting infusion is a common means of scaring off rattlesnakes. By 4, the plaza is empty, and we have barely moved. Jesus crosses the street to make yet another phone call. Their guide should have been here by now. They think he might be in another town a short bus ride away. For the first time all day, Juan starts to talk to me. He is a shy man, short and pudgy, with silver fillings that outline his front teeth whenever he smiles. "I had a dream a few days back," he starts. "It was awful. We were just about to cross the line, when our guide told us to hang back. 'Wait here,' he said. 'Eat something while I go up ahead to look for Border Patrol.' Three hours later, he still hadn't come back. Five hours later, he was still gone. I was tired and freezing cold, so I wrapped myself in my extra pair of pants. I started to fall asleep when a man dressed in black suddenly appeared and started grabbing at me. I reached over to warn my friends, but they were gone; I was alone in the middle of the desert." As Juan describes his dream, Jesus comes back with word that their guide isn't in Altar. They've waited the entire day before realizing that they aren't even in the right town. Human smuggling is an elusive and imprecise business; its central agents are, by their very nature, hard to pin down. But a good guide is a valuable commodity, and when the next bus pulls into the plaza, Uvaldo, Jesus, and Juan climb aboard. Ten minutes earlier, we had talked about heading back to the shelter and trying again in the morning. Now, suddenly, they are gone, following their purpose to another border town.
Part 3: Two Migrants for the Price of One!
Aug. 21, 2009
NOGALES, Mexico—Enrique Enriquez is a veteran of the battles fought along the border. As one of the local heads of the humanitarian immigration agency Grupos Beta, Enriquez has spent almost 15 years watching as the business of human smuggling morphed from a series of independent "mom and pop" shops into a big business. The first time I paid Enriquez a visit, I was ushered into his sparsely furnished office and offered an orange plastic chair. He was dressed in the orange polo shirt that is Grupos Beta's uniform. With a cell phone glued to his ear, he flashed a quick smile and raised an index finger in lieu of a proper hello. He'd be with me as soon as he could; right now he was literally in the middle of a life or death situation. A teenage migrant from the state of Tabasco was lost in the desert, having been separated from the rest of his group of border crossers only hours after starting out. The boy had no food or water, and he was in bad shape. His cell phone battery was low, but he had a clear signal. He was on the Mexican side of the border, which made his situation even more perilous. There would be no miraculous rescues by the U.S. Border Patrol. The boy had called his parents, who had in turn rung up Enriquez in a furious panic. "Where did he enter?" Enriquez asked the boy's distraught mother. "Altar? Sasabe? Nogales? What was the last city he was in?" She doesn't know; her son isn't very smart. He is young and naive, and he can't identify his surroundings. Enriquez takes a deep breath and hangs up the phone. "I'm sorry, but can you come back tomorrow?" he asks. "I'm a little busy." The next day, I return to find Enriquez in a better mood; he had managed to rescue the boy before his phone died. The whole ordeal was just another afternoon on the job, another instance of the desert swallowing up a lost soul. On that day, Enriquez was lucky to have gotten one back. "Ninety percent of the people who cross the border are assaulted in one way or another," Enriquez begins. "And so was that boy. There are the bajadores, bandits who set upon the migrants and rob them. Sometimes the guides can turn on their people. The Border Patrol can get a little rough. And then there are the narcos." Moving migrants across the border and into the United States has become so profitable that even Mexico's narcotraffickers have become involved. Drivers use a single twisting dirt road, rutted with pot holes, to bring their human cargo the 60 miles from Altar to the border town of Sasabe. The road, referred to by local media as the "route of death," is controlled by local narcotraffickers. According to Enriquez, the cartels have consolidated their control over the area in the last three years. They levy a tax of roughly 50-150 pesos (about $4-$12) on every migrant shipped north; those from countries other than Mexico pay more. Grupos Beta estimates that as many as 500,000 migrants are moved through Altar on the way to the United States during the busiest years. This "tax" represents an incredible source of extra income. Once the migrants reach Sasabe, they set out for various points east and west, obscure desert outposts where the U.S. Border Patrol has a light presence. They wait for the sun to set and begin their march into the United States with the arrival of a cool night breeze. "You have to be very, very careful on that road and in Sasabe," Enriquez warns. "They do not mess around there. They will shoot you." He proceeds to lift up his shirt, showing me numerous healed gunshot wounds. They are strange souvenirs from a career spent trying to help people. He rolls up a pant leg and knocks on his shin, creating a loud, hollow sound. "They stabbed me in Sasabe. I'm just warning you." "Sasabe, Sasabe, Sasabe! Two for one, two for one, two for one! Let's go, let's go, let's go!" I climb into the passenger seat as the driver does his best to fill his van before leaving Altar. It's the off-season for human smuggling, and he has to offer a discount—two humans smuggled for the price of one—in an attempt to fill up his van. He is very enthusiastic to have a gringo along for the ride—it's a new twist on a usually boring workday. He drives this route dozens of times a week, bringing migrants to the border while also serving as the middleman between the migrants and the cartels. Before leaving Altar, he must report the number of migrants traveling in his van and pay the corresponding tax. A driver who underreports his passenger manifest can face deadly consequences. Soon the van starts to fill up with five, 10, 15 migrants. They keep their eyes cast down to the ground and are reluctant to answer my questions. One man accuses me of being an undercover Border Patrol agent. He is unconvinced by my protestations that I am simply a journalist interested in collecting migrants' stories. The van is crowded now; people start to sweat and shift uneasily on the long metal benches that pass for seating. A short, gaunt man wearing crudely stitched sneakers and a baseball cap that features two fighting gamecocks climbs into the passenger seat next to me. He is the group's guide. I introduce myself, though he is just as shy as his clients. The driver takes his seat behind the wheel, and we're off. Less than five minutes after we leave town, we turn off a well-paved highway, and start down "the route of death" for Sasabe. The driver and the guide—once the driver empties his van at the border, the guide will take them into Arizona—both cross themselves. Gradually, the guide starts to open up to me. He tells me that his name is Martin, that he is 23, and that this is his sixth time leading a group of migrants into the United States. "I led my first group when I was 15. It was very easy. I didn't have any problems. But in the last two to three years, there have been fewer customers, less money," he tells me. "I've been doing this for eight years, and it used to be much easier. Today there is more Border Patrol in the area, which makes it harder, and more violence in the desert, which makes it more dangerous. Each year, we have to pay a higher tax to the narcos and be more careful about the routes we move through. You have to be very smart to be a guide these days. You have to know your routes, or you can get killed." As we talk, the van speeds through the desert, taking sharp turns at breakneck speed, flying over small sand dunes. The worn-out shocks make the ride very uncomfortable, though the driver grins with pleasure each time we bounce around. Maybe he is an adrenaline junkie, or maybe he is just trying to make his job interesting. While chain-smoking a pack of Marlboro Reds, Martin continues to open up to me. He claims that he will earn only $1,000 for leading his group into the States. "No one does this job because they can; they only do it because they have to. My dad taught me how to navigate the desert, but he died when I was 16. I have seven younger siblings, and it was my duty to try and help the family. I work in the U.S. to earn dollars, and I try to return to visit my family once a year. Every time I go back to the United States, I try and lead a group to make a little extra money." By now, we are deep in the desert, more than halfway to Sasabe. Vans returning to Altar pass us, their drivers flashing a series of hand signals. Our driver sits up straight in his seat, slowing the car. He turns to Martin and demands 70 pesos, a little more than $5. We've reached an army checkpoint, and a bribe is in order. Our van stops next to a camouflaged Hummer. The driver leaves, disappearing for a few minutes with an army sergeant. A second soldier with a buzz cut, aviator glasses, and an automatic weapon slung across his shoulder climbs halfway into the driver's seat and gives me a quizzical look. "Where are you from?" he barks. "Arizona," I reply. He isn't quite sure what to make of my answer, and he stares at me for what seems significantly longer than the minute it probably was. Finally the sergeant reappears. The driver climbs back into the van, and we're off again. "He thought you were the guide," chuckles Martin. "He couldn't figure out what the fuck a white boy would be doing taking a bunch of Mexicans across the line. They are going to be trying to figure that out for a month." As Sasabe gets closer, signs of civilization start to materialize. We've been driving for just under two hours. Burned-out shells of cars litter the sides of the road. Stray dogs and pigs wander in front of our van. We pull out of the desert and back onto the highway. A few minutes more and we can see the border, the fence, and the bright lights that are the unmistakable sign of the U.S. Border Patrol. The driver pulls up next to a small bodega and unloads his cargo. It's early afternoon, and the desert sun is still high. The migrants squat in what little shade is available, waiting for night to fall, for the temperature to drop, making movement possible. The van turns around, and the driver and I stop at a liquor store to buy a case of beer for the road. We head back to Altar to load up again. Another day on the job, and a successful one at that. Sacha Feinman is a freelance journalist born and raised in southern Arizona. This story was researched and reported under a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2225315/
Day laborer advocates sue Riverside police for records By SONJA BJELLAND
The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, CA August 4, 2009
PDF: Writ of mandate filed by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network
A day laborer group has sued the Riverside Police Department for records about the agency's arrests of undocumented immigrants. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network first requested the documents in May and did not receive all it wanted, so it sued in July, according to court documents. A status conference is set for Aug. 26. The move followed police and U.S. Border Patrol arrests in January of undocumented immigrants near Madison Street and Indiana Avenue in Riverside near the Home Depot store. Day laborers looking for work congregate in that area. Police officials said they had received complaints of people urinating in public, riding bicycles on sidewalks and trespassing. The request sought records about the Police Department's plans with the U.S. Border Patrol and correspondence between the agencies. In addition, the group asked for a list of people arrested or cited for misdemeanors that includes the nationality of the individuals, who was transferred to federal custody and the legal basis for each arrest, according to court records. In May, the Police Department sent a response stating that the agency had supplied the records that exist or are not confidential. In that response, the agency provided a list of the number of employees in the department by position and the portion of the policy and procedures manual related to the arrest and detention of undocumented persons, according to court documents. The response did not explain why the other records were withheld, according to court records. Police Sgt. Jaybee Brennan said such requests are forwarded to the City Attorney's Office, and because the lawsuit is considered an ongoing case, the department would not comment. City Attorney Greg Priamos did not return calls. Law enforcement agencies have some protections for records related to investigations but are not always exempt, said Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, of which The Press-Enterprise is a member. Arrest information qualifies as public, Scheer said. But not every agency collects each person's nationality or other detailed information. Reach Sonja Bjelland at 951-368-9642 or sbjelland@PE.com
Robber pretended to have work for day laborer victims North County Times-Californian July 31, 2009 Three day laborers reported they were robbed at gunpoint Thursday morning after getting into the car of someone posing as a prospective employer, sheriff's officials. Sgt. Amy Brown said the men were picked up about 8 a.m. at the AMPM mini-mart on Mission Road near Olive Hill Road. The person who said he had work for them took them north on Olive Hill Road in a red Toyota Camry, she said. At some point, the robber pulled a gun on the men and took the cash they had with them, Brown said. The victims were left on Olive Hill Road, she said. They were not injured, she said.
In 2008, four people pleaded guilty to a string of similar robberies against day laborers. They received prison sentences ranging from two years to 13 years. Call staff writer Colleen Mensching at 760-739-6675.
Slow economy spells little work for day laborers by Elisabeth Arriero Jul. 27, 2009 The Arizona Republic Once at the center of controversy, day laborers have become increasingly scarce as residents make fewer complaints about them and their numbers dwindle. Experts, leaders and laborers credit the changes to the slow economy, which has meant lower wages and less consistent work for day laborers. Some also attribute the decline to intimidation from anti-immigrant activism and legislation, leading many to leave the state in search of more promising markets. It is a stark contrast from just a few years ago, when hundreds of day laborers would hit the streets of Valley cities each morning and visit work centers in search of jobs ranging from construction to house cleaning. "The money was good then," said Trinidad Vasquez of Mesa, who stood at Gilbert and Broadway roads last week hoping for work. "I could work seven days a week if I wanted to." These days, he hasn't been so lucky. Salvador Reza, coordinator for the Macehualli Work Center in Phoenix, said that at the site's peak two years ago, 60 of the 120 day laborers there would find work. Now, the center averages 75 workers a day, with perhaps only 10 getting work, Reza said. Day-laborer numbers have also dwindled on the streets, Glendale Vice Mayor Manny Martinez said. "One reason . . . why is that a lot of them have gone back," he said. Nik Theodore, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-author of a 2006 study on day labor in the United States, said that unlike downturns in the 1990s or in 2001, this recession has hit the day-laborer population directly. "This is the first one that hit the housing market so severely," he said. According to Theodore's 2006 study, "On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States," construction contractors employed 43 percent of day laborers. Day laborers' top occupations were construction laborer, landscaper, painter, roofer and dry-wall installer. But Theodore said that when construction projects across the country came to a halt, many day laborers lost their relatively stable income. On a recent day at Gilbert and Broadway, laborer Julio Zayas noted that "only three people have been picked up today." A few years ago, all 15 of the men would have found jobs. Gone are the days when a worker would get hired for a job that took three days, Vasquez said. Four-hour shifts and odd jobs around the house are the new norm. But Zayas said the day laborers who continue to come to the Valley's corners each day do so because they have bills to pay in the United States and money to send to family members in their native country. The situation creates a breeding ground for lower wages, less opportunity and unscrupulous employers, Reza said. "It's beginning to be a trend," he said. "Usually, they wouldn't go for less than $10. But in a situation this bad, someone offers $7 and they'll go." Vasquez and Zayas said they have noticed a similar trend. While Vasquez said he doesn't accept anything less than $8 per hour, he's known of others who will take as low as $5 per hour. Theodore said that although he doesn't have any recent data, he suspects the median hourly wage has dropped substantially from its 2006 level of $10. Perhaps the biggest threat to day laborers is increasingly tainted ethics. Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said reports of labor violations, non-payment of wages, and underpayment have risen since the recession began. In 2005, one in two laborers reported having been cheated at least once. "In better times, you would walk off a job after a day or two of not getting paid," he said. "Now they're working for longer periods of times because they're desperate." Newman said more day-labor groups are banding together against the "pronounced and vitriolic anti-immigration sentiment" in Arizona that has silenced many workers' rights. Rather than continue fighting for higher standards, Mesa pastor Magdalena Schwartz said she's known many who just move to other states, such as Texas or California, or else back to their home country. "This is the reality for a lot of people," said Schwartz, of Discípulos del Reino. "They have to move because they can't find a job here." But while many day laborers have left the state, Newman said he had faith that the ones who have stayed will get through the economic storm that has gripped the country. "They're used to living at the margins," he said. "They make do by surviving on less and continuously looking for opportunities for work."
Sandy Springs targets day laborer traffic Drivers hiring workers must pull off road; limits also placed on locations By APRIL HUNT The Atlanta Journal-Constitution July 26, 2009 Sandy Springs can’t do anything about the day laborers lingering at major Roswell Road intersections, hoping that a passing car will bring work. That’s because anyone can be in the public right of way. Plus, the upscale city has admitted it has — and needs — those kinds of workers by adopting a new local law that focuses more on traffic than its does the people on the sidewalk. “We are not stopping anyone from seeking employment or from hiring,” councilman Rusty Paul said. “We are just trying to be smart about safety.” The problem has come from the traffic jams — and risks to pedestrians — created when a driver stops to offer work. Police Chief Terry Sult said the workers will ignore traffic in their rush to land a job, creating hazards and sudden stops on some of the city’s most heavily traveled roads. In some cases, the workers swarm around a potential employer so quickly it blocks traffic completely, Sult said. So under the new law, the city will fine any driver who doesn’t pull off and park to hire the workers. The citation is $250 for the first offense, $500 for the second and $1,000 and up to three months in jail for the third. “There is an orderly way to do things,” Sult said. “We can’t have people slamming on their brakes because someone in front of them decides to stop and hire someone.” The city weighed the issue for a month before approving it Tuesday. No one spoke out against the measure, and some churches have even signaled they approve of the push for safety. The new law does limit where people can solicit work. The laborers face the same fines for being on private property, such as parking lots, unless the owners give permission. The laborers also have to stay 300 feet away from freeway ramps, city attorney Wendell Willard said. That distance — that of a football field — should keep traffic on busy I- 285 and Ga. 400 moving, he added. Traffic flow, and the hiring process, would also run more smoothly with more job centers. City officials said they hope the new law will encourage more of the hiring centers like the one that Holy Spirit Catholic Church opened on Northwoods Drive earlier this year. There, workers register for jobs daily and the staff helps keep track of there comings and goings as a way to protect them from being mistreated. Plans are also under way to offer language classes for workers as they wait. “I am very proud of our community for doing this,” Mayor Eva Galambos said. “We are doing the right thing by everyone.”
 Day Laborer Program interim director Scott Lyles Photo By Jana Birchum
Austin's day laborers, the mostly Hispanic, mostly young men who congregate before 6am each day to seek short-term work, want to know what you think of them. Viewing a visiting reporter as an important link to the community with which they are interdependent, they quickly turn the tables and start asking their own questions: "What do the people in Austin think of us?" asks one. These day laborers understand that appearances matter -- especially after the bruising battle over relocating the site from downtown to North Central Austin -- that took place between the city and a neighborhood that had checked out the day labor scene, and didn't like what it saw. Of course, the way things were at the old day labor site, few would have invited it warmly into their neighborhood. Day labor in Austin had been troubled from the start, due largely to the deleterious mixture of workers and the homeless and transient population that mingled together on the downtown streets. Only about 30 or so men a day were getting work inside the site. Outside, there was chaos. There was crime. And there was the general feeling of menace to the citizenry that the sight of a collection of shabbily dressed men of color walking the city streets often provokes. But when last spring's Computer Science Corp. deal forced the program off the city-owned land at Cesar Chavez and Lavaca to I-35 and 50th, where it faces the freeway but backs up to a residential neighborhood, the attendant uproar caused city leaders to focus on the program long enough to see that it had to change. And change it has. If you drive onto the day labor site on a typical morning at peak time, between 6-7am, no clusters of workers will rush your car. Instead, you'll see the site director, Scott Lyles, or the labor organizer, Jose Briseño, as well as workers wearing orange safety vests who have volunteered to help "run the list" -- that is, check the list of workers and match them with employers as they come in. Inside the building where the workers wait for jobs, the atmosphere is that of an early morning senior high school assembly: over 100 young men sit in folding chairs, in varying states of quietude. Some have whispered conversations with their neighbors, some play checkers, a few watch television. But mostly they are looking toward the front of the big room, waiting. The high school analogy doesn't go much farther, of course: The workers aren't waiting for a report from the headmaster, but for the signal that they have been chosen to go to work. And the biggest difference between high school and day labor is autonomy -- the workers themselves have collaborated to write the set of rules to which they voluntarily subject themselves. A little over three months into the operation of the new, nonprofit First Workers Corp., the number of workers getting jobs is more than double what it was at the downtown site. Employers say they're pleased with the new, more organized format. The neighborhood protestors who picketed the site in its first days of operation have gone home. Officials of the Austin Police Department, INS, and the city of Austin have all expressed pleasant surprise at the way the program is going. Lynn Svensson, the consultant who has presided over a string of day-labor overhauls in California, and whom the city hired to help remake day labor in Austin, is not surprised by the reaction. "This is the thing about this program," she says. "You come into the town and everybody hates the day laborers. Everybody hated them everywhere I went." After the change, Svensson says, "everybody loves them. It happens everywhere."
Worker Consensus Rules
This is what everyone hoped, but many doubted, would happen when the day labor site moved from its downtown home. Why the turnaround? Mostly everybody agrees there are two main reasons: First, the program moved away from the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, thus isolating the challenges of day labor from the often more complicated ones faced by Austin's homeless population. And second, the program is now run by the workers themselves. According to the model instituted by Svensson, anything that happens at the center is a result of consensus on the part of the workers. More than just a majority vote, consensus is the agreement of "everybody except for one or two people," according to Svensson. Such consensus is reached through meetings with all the workers, which are usually held at the beginning of the day, before most men have left for their jobs. Workers participate in the administration of the site, helping run the all-important "list" that contains the order of names for the day, and decides who goes out to work when. They also patrol the neighborhood in crossing guard-orange safety vests to make sure nobody is loitering about in the neighborhood or -- horror of horrors -- soliciting work outside the day labor site. It was such a consensus process that led to the creation of all the center's policies and rules, of which the most important are:  These men wait for employers to come to First Workers Corp., the new city day labor site. The site generally receives about 120 workers per day, the vast majority of whom receive jobs. Photo By Jana Birchum But laborers say that they come to the site to work, and do not want charity. Now a vendor sells breakfast tacos to day laborers, and they take pride in paying their own way. (In fact, workers plan to eventually start paying dues to use the site, in hopes that it can become self-supporting.) All this is not to say there are no longer problems within the day labor program. Though most employers seem to be satisfied with the laborers they hire, one recently complained that workers he hired got drunk on the job. Nevertheless, he said, he wouldn't "let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch," and he returned the next day to hire four more workers. (The offending workers will have to go before the site's "discipline committee," in which laborers are subject to punishment devised by a committee of peers, including English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and bilingual representatives.) The workers have concerns, too. Some worry about employers who take advantage of their workers, but most are concerned with the behavior of other workers, and how that might affect the viability of the day labor program and its reputation in the community at large. Those who work for less than $8 an hour, those who are lazy or don't want to work, or those who arrive at the site before the official 5:15am opening time (workers may arrive at 5:15, but the site opens for employer pick-ups at 6am) in order to be first on the list of workers, are of greatest concern to the other laborers.
Racial Divide
Then there's the issue of race relations. There has always been racial unrest surrounding day labor, and that's not likely to change. At the old site, allegations from both black and white day laborers were leveled against Hispanics -- that they conspired to get the best jobs -- really, all the jobs -- for themselves; that black employees were let go in favor of Hispanic ones; and that the atmosphere was generally hostile to all but the Hispanic majority. Hispanic workers are still clearly in the majority at the day labor site. On a typical Tuesday morning last week, there were about 85 day laborers at the site. Of those, between five and 10 were black, and even fewer, maybe three or four, were white. Some of these laborers, even some Hispanics who speak English, charge that Briseño and the day laborers who volunteer to help match employers with prospective employees play favorites, sending their particular friends out on jobs while others languish for weeks without getting work.  Getting work the old fashioned way at the corner of San Marcos and Cesar Chavez Photo By Jana Birchum One worker, on condition of anonymity, said that the Mexican nationals (mostly undocumented immigrants) feel that Americans and legal immigrants should not be using the site, because their legal status allows them to easily get work elsewhere. Anglo and black workers tend to stick together at the site, as during one recent consensus-building meeting called to establish new rules to prevent favoritism in job distribution. Though Briseño conducted the meeting in both English and Spanish, English translation would occasionally lapse as Briseño conversed with workers in Spanish. And that was a good day, according to one worker, who said, "he doesn't usually translate even this much."
Marketing the Program
Another thing the laborers want more of is marketing. Though the program has been largely successful in getting laborers off the streets, there are not enough jobs to go around, and some workers have left the site in frustration after repeatedly finding no work there. Laborers believe that if employers only knew about the day labor site and what kind of workers are there, employer participation would be much greater. If marketing is what the day laborers want, they may have found their man in interim director Scott Lyles. Lyles has a marketing background, and is given to using business analogies to inspire workers. At a recent meeting, he encouraged them to talk about the day labor site throughout the week, promoting it wherever they go. "We want to be everywhere, like Coca- Cola," he says. Lyles practices what he preaches, talking up day labor wherever he goes -- like when he rides the bus on ozone day. Then there was the time he took a laborer who got hurt playing soccer to the doctor's office. After talking with Lyles and the worker, the doctor asked who they were and what they did. Upon hearing they were from the day labor site, Lyles says, the doctor said that he "didn't realize you had workers like this," and that he would come to the site on two consecutive Sundays, and hire workers for a home improvement project at $10 an hour. A newcomer who hit town this August, Lyles missed all the upset over the program's relocation. He came to the site as a volunteer on its first day of operation, after hearing about it on the evening news, and was soon hired on as a part-time employee. When the center's original director, Waco resident Joe Medrando, resigned after just a few weeks on the job, Lyles took over as interim director. Assistant City Manager Marcia Conner says the city and the board are beginning the process of looking for a permanent director. Lyles says he wants to develop a volunteer program for the center. He could use people to help with administrative work, as well as with English as a Second Language classes for laborers. The site currently has one daytime ESL class, with an instructor provided by Austin Community College. Lyles says he's working with ACC to develop a Spanish class for contractors to be held at the site -- and if there was room left over, he says, members of the surrounding community could attend too. Lyles is also organizing a book drive, for Spanish-English dictionaries and textbooks that could help with translation and with educating the day laborers. Some eyebrows have raised at the initiative he has taken -- all his big ideas are supposed to be worker-generated, they charge -- but Lyles believes that such initiative is necessary to have a successful site. He would never enforce a policy change over the objections of the workers, he says. "This is not a Scott Lyles-run site," he says. Indeed, Lyles seems to have the support of the workers, and he consults them frequently on decisions regarding site management. If he receives complaints -- either from the workers or through Briseño, their organizer -- the issue is talked through in a consensus-building meeting.
Neighborhood Relations
So far, an uneasy peace has prevailed between the neighborhood and the workers; confrontations between neighbors and day laborers have been virtually nonexistent. In fact, to this point, in the only day labor-related incident between neighbors and laborers, it was a neighbor who got cited. Fred DuPuy, president of the Eye-35 Neighborhood Association, was cited for trespassing after entering the site with a video camera without permission from the site administrator. Though a witness' report quotes DuPuy as "coming to see how many illegal aliens are here," DuPuy says he never said that. Instead, he said, he was trying to ascertain whether printed materials at the site had been translated into English, after being tipped off by an Anglo worker who had tried to use the site that it was rigged in favor of Hispanic laborers. Assistant Police Chief Bruce Mills says that although APD has not yet put together crime statistics to be compared to the neighborhood crime level before the site opened, "So far, it has been without incident." But one incident with still ambiguous implications -- a daytime burglary only blocks from the site -- has everyone worried that the honeymoon could be over. Officer Juan Suarez, who is assigned to the day labor site, says he doesn't think the house was broken into by a day laborer, and even DuPuy is not making any accusations, beyond saying that it looked like "a professional job." Suarez was assigned to monitor the site 40 hours a week, its hours of operation, as the result of a compromise between the neighborhood and the city. While the APD had planned to assign officers to the site on an as-needed basis, the neighborhood wanted an officer assigned to the site at all times. So now Suarez is there when the laborers are there. But instead of having to police the workers and protect the neighborhood from them, he says, his major activity is protecting the day laborers from contractors who might try to take advantage of them; some are emboldened to steal the workers' labor because employers suspect they are illegal aliens, and thus will have no way to retaliate. According to DuPuy, the city has kept up its part of the bargain by keeping workers off the streets. But still he objects to the "intangible" damage that the presence of the strangers inflicts on the neighborhood. He says that his girlfriend has been whistled at in his front yard by men he suspects could be day laborers, and that such encounters affect the atmosphere of his neighborhood. But in another sense, he adds, the day labor experience has had a positive impact on his neighborhood, in terms of hard-won political awareness and clout.  Juan Briseño does intake for First Workers Corp., the new city-run day labor site. Photo By Jana Birchum Already weary from the nuisance created by the Rio Motel down the road, they organized, creating the Eye-35 Neighborhood Association to protest the city's plans. A residential setting is the worst possible place for such an outfit, they argued, and they managed to elicit a promise from city leadership that the site's term of operation would be only one year. After nine months of operation, the program and its effect on the neighborhood will be evaluated based on a set of performance measures adopted by the council in September. But it won't be easy to oust the day laborers on the basis of "intangibles," as the performance measures the council adopted are highly objective, including the number of laborers getting work and the level of crime in the surrounding neighborhood. Though, on the one hand, the standards could protect the day laborers from unfounded accusations, on the other, they could be setting the site up for failure. "I don't think there's ever been a program anywhere that's been so strictly evaluated," says consultant Svensson. "It's asking way too much for a program like that." Nonetheless, she remains optimistic. "I think they'll be able to live up to [the standards]," she says, adding, "Every time here they've put one in a neighborhood, it's improved the neighborhood. You just don't get the crimes" that people expect. For his part, DuPuy says the evaluation criteria are not useful to the neighborhood, since any change in the site's location would be subject to council approval. Not only that, he says, but the First Workers board established to govern the center is stacked with government employees and day laborers, who are predisposed to keep funding the program in its current location. "When they first decided to form the board, for the first few meetings, it was like they were stroking our ego, saying "You guys are going to be able to make all the decisions.' They made it seem like we had the power to decide if it was or wasn't working with this review process -- Really, it's just a way for them to keep us spinning our wheels." (The First Workers board is currently in the process of developing a media relations policy, and would not comment on the site until the policy is completed, which will likely be at its November meeting.)
The Threat of La Migra
There's another uneasy peace currently reigning at the day labor site, and that's among the workers, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Austin Police Department. Remarkably, all parties seem more or less satisfied with the way things are going. The INS, whose business it is to enforce immigration laws, is conspicuous in its absence at a place known to contain a large concentration of transgressors of those laws. (The dirty little secret of the day labor program being, of course, that many of the men who seek work there -- as many as 80%, according to one estimate -- are illegal immigrants from Mexico.) Austin has long had a complicated relationship with Mexican nationals, who are currently supporting the city's monster construction boom with their labor, but who are commonly viewed as interlopers who take away jobs from the poorest Americans and drive down wages for the rest. That is not the prevailing philosophy among the city's leaders, however. In 1997, to take one important example, the Austin City Council passed a resolution declaring the city a "Safety Zone, where all persons are treated equally, with respect and dignity, without regard to immigration status." This means, more or less, that immigrants will not be questioned about their status when applying for social services, say, or seeking day labor. The APD, likewise, doesn't do the INS's work for them. According to Assistant Police Chief Mills, "Generally, it has been a long-held policy that we don't enforce immigration laws." In the case of a roundup by INS, he says, "we would not participate. What we would do, and have done, we might work the perimeter to make sure [no one gets hurt] -- If INS decided to come to day labor, we would open the doors and say come on in. But we do not actively enforce the immigration laws." Some take issue with this policy, due to a basic philosophical difference -- the belief that illegal immigration should not be tolerated, let alone rewarded with the facilitating and subsidizing of illegal immigrants' job searches. But for now at least, the prevailing wisdom is that Austin is operating at full employment, meaning that more or less all those who want jobs have them, and that the jobs the day laborers are filling are the ones no one else wants.
Last-Resort Ordinance
Svensson says that the primary measure of a day labor program's success is whether or not it gets workers off the streets and into the official day labor site. By those standards, how is Austin doing? Not bad, but not perfect, either. Though the old day labor site downtown is finally evacuated of workers, another makeshift site in East Austin, at Cesar Chavez and San Marcos, continues to give the authorities trouble. And unconfirmed reports have another makeshift site operating in Montopolis, where some workers work and employers employ -- the temptation to save the trip into town is presumably too great. The solution: A combination of eternal vigilance on the part of the APD and the solicitation ordinance adopted by the council this summer has had some success. While not illegal to stand on city streets soliciting work, it is illegal to enter a prospective employer's vehicle -- a misdemeanor that could result in both employer and worker getting ticketed. So far, only 14 citations have been issued under the solicitation ordinance, which Mills says is not surprising. "We hoped we never had to write one" ticket, he said, because the solicitation ordinance "really is the last resort." Since police only write tickets when they see a deal for work made between an employer and a worker, workers simply standing on street corners waiting for work are not in violation of the ordinance. In those cases, Officer Suarez and organizer Briseño head out on an education mission, passing out flyers and encouraging the wayward workers to come to the official day labor site. Would things be better if, as some have suggested, the solicitation ordinance were enforced citywide? The workers have voted to request a citywide ordinance, in order to promote additional use of the site. But the authorities aren't sure yet. Assistant Chief Mills says, "That's up to the city council. I don't think it's necessary -- It's not a tool we need." The ordinance may have to go citywide, however, if tentative plans for a second day labor site in South Austin come to fruition. City officials say that signs currently point to the likelihood of such a site, and Assistant City Manager Conner says that the city currently has realtors out scoping possible locations. A southern site might improve things for south-side workers who, according to Briseño, are unable to reach the site by bus before 7:30am. By that time, he says, the chances of getting high enough on the list to get hired for the day are slim to none -- though they can compensate by periodically serving as volunteers, which gets them moved to the head of the list for the following day.
Conner's Save
The site's initial success is a coup for Conner -- who took no end of heat from the neighborhoods during the relocation process -- but she remains somewhat embattled. DuPuy says that Conner "presides over the board meetings, and sets the agenda," not giving neighborhood representatives a large enough stake in the decision-making process. But program participants give Conner high marks for going the distance to make the program work. Svensson says she was impressed with Conner's performance at the opening of the new site. "She was out there dealing with the employers, getting great wages for [the workers]. I never expected to see her doing that." Indeed, the laborers feel that Conner has done right by them: This summer, after the Chronicle ran a story that was perceived as unflattering toward Conner, the laborers sent her flowers "and a nice letter of support," said Svensson, adding, "They told her that they knew what it felt like to have people say bad things about them that weren't true." But Svensson says that while outside leadership is important for the success of day labor, it means little without the leadership of day laborers themselves. "Give the credit to the day laborers" for the successful program, she says. "There's a lot of people that want to take credit for it now, but it belongs to them." 
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