Bay Area day laborer centers reject House immigration bill

Bay Area day laborer centers reject House immigration bill

Beth Winegarner, The Examiner
Apr 3, 2006 9:00 AM (14 hrs ago)
SAN FRANCISCO - Leaders with many Bay Area day laborer centers say they will refuse to comply if Congress approves a bill requiring those centers to check employees’ eligibility to work in the United States.

The debate continues this week over HR 4337 — the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act — which is intended to boost border security, combat the smuggling of immigrants and require verification of worker eligibility. The latter could have a chilling effect on day laborer centers, which have been established nationwide to connect immigrant workers with employers and keep those workers off city streets.

“If this passes, it would be devastating,” said Renee Saucedo, an attorney with San Francisco’s La Raza Centro Legal and the city’s Day Labor Program. “It’s unrealistic to require us to check papers when the vast majority of the client community is undocumented.”
Many centers, including those in San Francisco, Mountain View, San Jose and Oakland — all of which are members of the national Day Labor Organizing Network — would refuse to comply, Saucedo said. However, there are concerns that this could lead to a loss of federal funding.

San Francisco’s center sees an average of 500 to 600 day laborers daily, according to Jenny Chacon with San Francisco’s Department of Public Health. Many are migrant and most are Latino, but the center sees African-American and Caucasian workers as well. Nationwide, 70 percent of day laborers are undocumented, Saucedo said.
Although many centers are taking a clear stand against HR 4337, which passed the House of Representatives and now rests in the hands of the Senate, other Peninsula centers are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

“We’d have to look at the provisions before we decide what actions we’d take,” said Kitty Lopez, executive director at Samaritan House, which manages a day labor center for the city of San Mateo. “It’s not illegal to have a place for them to go, and that’s what we’re providing.”

Even if the law passes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be unlikely to go after small-time employers hiring workers for home construction projects, according to ICE spokeswoman Victoria Kice.

“Our focus is targeting the employer … and on cases where there is evidence of ongoing criminal activity or egregious violations,” Kice said. One problem ICE has seen is that existing fines are too low, allowing employers to consider it “part of the cost of doing business,” she added.

Homeowners hiring day laborers for painting or electrical work are likely to keep coming, according to Saucedo. “They’re not supposed to hire undocumented workers now, and they do,” she said. “I don’t see that ending because this law passes.”

If passed, HR 4337 would boost fines for all businesses from a minimum of $250 to a minimum of $5,000 — less if they have fewer than 251 employees.

The bill is competing with one in the Senate, which would create temporary legal status for undocumented workers already performing agricultural work in the United States.
Examiner