INS Gets Tough on Steady Use of Day-Laborers

Employers who habitually hire illegal aliens at day-labor pickup spots across Southern California will have their vehicles confiscated as part of an “aggressive” crackdown on the growing practice, federal officials warned Thursday.

“Under federal law, we can, and do, seize vehicles that are used to transport illegal aliens and we are issuing the warning today that people who violate the law are in jeopardy of having their vehicle seized,” Harold Ezell, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Western Region, said at a Los Angeles press conference.

He said that the INS campaign has been launched because of the rapidly growing numbers of workers congregating at the informal street-corner employment sites and because of increasing complaints from merchants and residents, who view the crowds as unsightly annoyances.

More Looking for Work

Ezell said that the 1986 immigration law, which prohibits most employers from hiring illegal aliens, has led to many people losing jobs and hence more people looking for temporary work.

Immigrants advocates, however, criticized the new government tactic and questioned how effective it would be.

“I don’t think it will work,” said Andres Bustamante, legal director of the AFL-CIO’s immigrant assistance project. “A lot of the people standing at the street corners have (legal) work authorization . . . or false documents. They prefer the corners to working in sweat shops where they don’t even get the minimum wage.”

The going rate at most corners is $5 an hour, he said.

Arguing that the informal labor pools, which have been a Southern California tradition for years, provide “an important niche” for temporary employers and workers, Jose Roberto Juarez of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said that the crackdown may disrupt the “whole arrangement--not just for the undocumented, but for legal residents and citizen employers as well.”

“INS has no business disrupting an important part of the Southern California labor market,” he said. Another concern is that the crackdown will steer employers away from hiring Latino laborers--whether they are legal or not--merely because of their skin color, Juarez said.

INS officials acknowledged that the immigration law allows for the “occasional” hiring of laborers, in which case employers are not required to ask for proof of work authorization.

“We’re not after the casual employer who hires someone as a one-time kind of thing,” Ezell said. “We’re looking for the employer who continually goes to the same place to pick up the same people.”

Which employers to target will be decided through surveillance of specific corners. After INS agents determine that an employer is regularly hiring undocumented workers, Ezell said, not only will his vehicles be seized, but workers also will be arrested for deportation and employers will be fined under immigration law sanctions and will face possible criminal prosecution for transporting illegal aliens. The transporting charge carries a maximum five-year prison term, said INS Los Angeles District Director Ernest Gustafson.

To avoid problems with INS agents, Ezell said, employers at the street corner labor pools should ask workers for proof of work authorization before hiring them. This may include an INS work permit or permanent residence card.

INS raids on the labor pickup spots are not planned for every day, but rather on a “hit-and-miss” basis, Gustafson said. The work will be done by some of the 200 INS agents who are charged with enforcing employer sanctions in the five-county district that includes Los Angeles and Orange counties. Ezell said that the campaign will also be in effect in San Diego.

INS officials refused to specify the streets they plan to target, but they have scores of well-known sites to choose from across Los Angeles County. Only a handful of laborers gather on some corners, while on others, like those at Sawtelle and Pico boulevards in West Los Angeles and Kester Street and Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys, hundreds of hopeful laborers gather each morning.

Juarez criticized the campaign as an ineffective use of INS resources.

“Even if the INS could eliminate the day-labor market entirely, it would not significantly decrease the number of undocumented workers,” Juarez said, noting that in contrast to factory employers, those at the street corners usually hire only a few workers.

Juarez predicted that the employers who regularly hire workers at the corners--typically independent construction contractors, small landscapers and construction companies--will continue to take the risk of hiring undocumented workers. For one thing, it is still safer than keeping illegal workers on the permanent payroll. And, he added, employers who would otherwise have to pay the $15- to $18-an-hour union scale can hire someone at the corners to do the job for $5.

“If INS targets one corner, people will just move elsewhere and continue the practice,” he predicted.