Anti-Dayworker Law Is Flawed, Ill-Advised

It was President Ulysses S. Grant who once observed that the best way to get rid of a bad law was to enforce it stringently. Costa Mesa could prove him right with the impractical and callous way it is going about enforcing its constitutionally questionable ordinance that makes it unlawful for dayworkers to solicit jobs from people in motor vehicles--or even intend to solicit jobs.

Using a sting operation last Thursday, police sent an undercover officer driving a pickup truck to a spot where day laborers have been gathering. When he said, “I need 10,” several men ran to the truck and hopped in the back. Immediately, four police cars and six officers moved in. They snared 12 men, all Latinos. That brought the total to 35 people who thus far have been cited in court on the misdemeanor criminal violation, including at least one charged with “intending” to ask for work.

Police and city officials defend their action despite criticism from attorneys concerned about immigrant rights and who claim entrapment. Critics also wonder how the city can possibly determine intent when the law has no guidelines to define it.

Even more basic, however, is whether the city policy of citing people for intent can pass constitutional muster.

The answer to that legal question could come next month when a court hearing is scheduled on a suit brought against the city by the American Civil Liberties Union. With the hearing only weeks away, it would make more sense for the city to wait for a definitive ruling on that part of the ordinance instead of launching a surveillance operation to round up workers.

Are undercover operations like the one last Thursday really the best use of police officers and patrol cars? Should they not be better deployed in high crime areas, rather than directing so much police power against people whose only crime is looking for work? And is it not the selective enforcement of the law a threat primarily, if not exclusively, to Latinos--even those here legally and possibly not “intending” to violate the law? And is the law itself legal?

Costa Mesa officials do not seem interested in the answers to those questions. Residents should be. And so should the court next month.