Group Advises Day Laborers Targeted in Sweeps for Illegals

Members of the Orange County Coalition for Immigrants Rights distributed flyers in the city of Orange on Wednesday, advising day laborers of their legal rights as police in that city continued a crackdown on suspected illegal aliens milling in search of day jobs.

“People were hungry for them,” coalition coordinator Robin Blackwell said of the information packets. She estimated that 250 were handed out in three hours Wednesday morning. “They need to know they don’t have to sign the salida (voluntary departure form).”

Blackwell added that lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union were considering legal action to stop sweeps of suspected illegal aliens by the Orange Police Department along a mile stretch of Chapman Avenue in east Orange, where day laborers congregate.

One week ago, apparently in response to neighborhood complaints, city of Orange police officers began stopping people for misdemeanor infractions such as jaywalking, loitering and driving without seat belts. Those who could not provide proof of legal residency, most of them Latinos, were turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol. There have been 116 arrests to date.

City officials in Orange say the crackdown is necessary because the number of men congregating along Chapman has increased tremendously in recent years, despite periodic sweeps by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and attempts to persuade the men to move to areas where they would not interfere with local businesses.

The Orange Police Department’s new policy contrasts sharply with those of most law enforcement agencies in Southern California.

Los Angeles police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth said violations of immigration law are considered to be a federal, rather than local, concern, and officers do not routinely ask misdemeanor violators about their residency status.

In San Diego, responding to criticism from Latino rights groups and others, police officials in 1986 ended the department’s practice of holding some suspected undocumented immigrants for the Border Patrol. The current policy instructs officers “not (to) initiate police contact solely because a person is suspected of being in violation of immigration laws.”