Hiring Statements Decried in Encinitas : Immigration: Migrant advocates say officials are misrepresenting federal law on curbside hiring.

Migrant advocates gathered on the steps of Encinitas City Hall on Friday to decry what they called a misinformation campaign being waged by officials about federal curbside hiring laws.

Speaking before news reporters, half a dozen advocates said area residents have been led to believe that serious consequences await them if they solicit migrant labor on the streets of the North County coastal community.

Robert Krueger Jr., an attorney and Encinitas resident who is a board member of Centro de Asuntos Migratorios, a San Diego migrants rights group, said statements by Encinitas and U.S. Border Patrol officials have suggested that homeowners could face fines or have their cars confiscated for taking part in the impromptu street-side job market.

However, federal law allows residents to hire short-term domestic help on an infrequent basis without abiding by the more stringent worker-verification procedures applied to commercial employers, Krueger said.

“Even if a resident knows that a worker does not have legal documentation to be in this country, he can still hire that worker to do household work,” said Krueger, a plaintiff in a recent lawsuit that successfully challenged a curbside hiring ban passed by the city in June.

“But, if you’ve been listening to recent statements made by these officials, you’d think they were out commiting high crimes,” he said.

In a letter sent to Mayor Pam Slater and other city officials, Krueger said the advocates hope to “curtail the chilling effect which these fears have on the ability of migrant workers to pursue a livelihood in order to feed themselves.”

The Rev. Rafael Martinez, executive director of the North County Chaplaincy, who was also a plaintiff in the recent lawsuit filed against the city by the American Civil Liberties Union, said a recent crackdown by Border Patrol agents to check hiring procedures in Encinitas had cleared the streets of both workers and employers.

“They’re trying to get rid of the workers by driving out the employers,” Martinez said. “And scare tactics are apparently part of the game.”

Advocates want the city to mail out to residents a flyer explaining the stipulations in federal law as they apply to private homeowners. “We want to cooperate with the city,” Krueger said.

“But, if they’re not prepared to make the flyer available to the public, we’re ready to go door-to-door and do it ourselves.”

Krueger and other advocates filed into City Hall seeking a meeting with City Manager Warren Shafer, who declined to emerge from his office.

Shafer, however, later met with Krueger privately to hear his concerns. “We haven’t made a decision yet about what we’re going to do,” he said later.

“We’ve got the flyer. I guess we’ll make an effort to get in touch with Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service people to verify the information. But it’s not the city’s responsibility to spread information about federal laws.”

Mike Gregg, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in San Diego, denied that agents have been scaring local residents from Encinitas streets.

“They’re a special-interest group, so they can try to portray the situation however they wish,” he said of the advocates. “But I’m telling you that it’s not the case.”

Gregg acknowledged that the federal hiring law excludes “casual employment by individuals who provide domestic service in a private home that is sporadic, irregular or incidental.”

However, during a recent Border Patrol survey of street hiring practices in Encinitas, agents informed small-time commercial employers--such as dry-wallers or bricklayers--of their requirement to check a worker’s documentation and fill out other paper work within a certain time frame, even if seeking to hire a migrant laborer for only one or two days.

“The point is that it’s still against the law to hire an illegal alien no matter who you are,” Gregg said. “The government just can’t expect a private citizen to determine someone’s alienage. It’s not in their expertise. It’s not their job to do that.”

Dave Crimmins, an Encinitas resident who showed up at City Hall in support of the advocates, agreed.

“This street-side hiring business has gone on forever around here,” said the 56-year-old nuclear engineer. “People just can’t be expected to check for identification from these workers.”

But Palmer Roberts, a retired Navy captain, told the advocates that a 1952 federal law enables officials to confiscate any vehicle carrying undocumented migrants for whatever purpose.

Roberts, a city volunteer who counts the number of migrant laborers soliciting work on city streets, told the group he has warned would-be employers of the law and threatened to report them to authorities if they continued what he called the illegal hiring practice.

Advocates responded that the 1952 law applies to coyotes--immigrant smugglers--and not to the average homeowner seeking help with household chores.

Krueger said it is exactly that type of inaccurate information the migrant advocates sought to combat.

“The city of Encinitas has to realize that the U.S. Constitution applies to us all--not just white Anglo Protestants like themselves,” he said. “Officials here have treated the immigration issue like a dreaded insect problem that has infested this community. In the process, they’ve dehumanized the migrant workers and cheapened us all.

“You don’t have to cross the ocean to find human rights violations,” he said. “They’re happening right here.”