Church Grounds Offered as Hiring Sites for Day Laborers, Employers

In reaction to mounting pressure by authorities against street-corner, day-labor pools, two Los Angeles Catholic churches announced Friday that they will offer their grounds as sanctuaries for workers and employers who wish to continue the informal employment activity.

“Every human being has a right to work,” said Father Gregory Boyle, pastor of Dolores Mission near downtown, one of the church’s offering sanctuary. The other church is historic Our Lady Queen of Angels, across from Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. “We welcome day laborers and those who wish to hire them. . . . We offer them protection and a safe place.”

Street-Corner Raids

In recent weeks, immigration authorities have arrested about 600 illegal aliens in street-corner raids in Los Angeles and Orange counties and have threatened to confiscate the vehicles of employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers at the sites.

Although no vehicles have been seized, the measures have resulted in a “dramatic drop”--as much as 70% in some cities--in the number of laborers and employers who congregate at the corners, immigration officials said.

Officials reported a few months ago that the crowds were growing because the 1986 immigration law, prohibiting the hiring of illegal aliens, had led to many aliens losing their jobs and hence more people looking for work.

With the crowds came increased complaints from neighbors about the disruptions to their neighborhoods. As a result, several cities are also looking at ways of regulating the work pools, including a proposal in Glendale to prohibit day laborers from congregating on city sidewalks and others in Costa Mesa and Laguna Beach aimed at finding alternate sites for the informal hiring halls.

Terming the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s tactics “inhuman, illegal and immoral,” several priests and nuns spoke at a morning press conference held at the corner of Pico Boulevard and Main Street, surrounded by about 40 day laborers hoping to find work.

Some of the men held posters in Spanish that read: “Stop the raids!” and “Here we are and here we stay. We are all illegals.”

Father Luis Olivares, pastor at Our Lady Queen of the Angels, which is affectionately known as La Placita, said the personal risk of arrest for offering a “zone of refuge” to day laborers was one that he and others were willing to take as part of their “evangelical commitment.”

INS officials at a press conference later in the day said they will oblige.

“If we find there is harboring, aiding and abetting of illegal aliens . . . we will not turn our head, play the ostrich with La Placita or anyone else,” said INS Western Regional Commissioner Harold Ezell. “If they break the law, they will be held accountable.”

‘Scare Tactic’

At the earlier press conference, an immigrants rights lawyer criticized the INS vehicle-confiscation plan as a “scare tactic.”

“They got a lot of publicity with their announcement (two weeks ago), but in almost all cases the tactic would be completely illegal,” Anne Kamsvaag said, adding that there have been no vehicle seizures because INS officials realize that legally “it’s not going to fly.”

Kamsvaag noted that under the law, when an employer hires a new worker for three days or longer, he has three days in which to ask for proof of legal work status and to fill out the required INS work form. An employer who hires a worker for less than three days has until the end of the first day of work to fulfill the requirements. Those who only “sporadically” hire laborers are not required to ask for documentation.

“Employers don’t have to check documents on the spot,” Kamsvaag emphasized.

INS officials agreed that this was the case, explaining that it may take several days of investigative work before a car can be confiscated.

“We may allow an individual to drive a worker to the place of employment, allow him to work and return a day or two later and then seize the vehicle,” said John Brechtel, assistant INS Los Angeles district director in charge of investigations.

The targets of the crackdown are employers who display a pattern of habitually hiring workers at the corners, officials said. And INS agents have been monitoring the street corners, videotaping some locations and jotting down license plate numbers to determine who these employers are, officials said.

Warnings will be distributed, beginning immediately, to those found to be hiring workers regularly, said INS Los Angeles District Director Ernest Gustafson.

“If a warning is issued and the employer is seen back there again, then we will confiscate his vehicle,” Gustafson said.