INS May Add Moorpark to Laborer Crackdown : Immigration: The federal agency says it has received many complaints. The mayor hopes the controversy can be handled locally.

Over the objections of Moorpark officials, a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman said Wednesday that the agency is seriously considering including Moorpark in a widespread crackdown on day laborers and their employers.

INS officials said they have received numerous complaints from Moorpark residents and merchants about the growing number of day laborers who gather in a downtown parking lot to solicit work.

“We are continually getting complaints,” said John Brechtel, chief of investigation of the Los Angeles office of the INS. “We’re taking a look right now at how extensive the problem is. Then we will decide what type of action needs to take place.”

Brechtel said it is possible that his agency will target the site in downtown Moorpark to determine if the day laborers who gather there are legal U.S. residents. About 30 or so of the men congregate each morning at a convenience store parking lot.

“I’m really surprised the INS is receiving complaints” about the day laborers in Moorpark, City Councilman Bernardo Perez said.

City officials heard few complaints about the workers, even when the issue was at the forefront of recent City Council meetings, Perez said.

The issue came before city officials in June when the owner of the convenience store, The Tipsy Fox, complained that the presence of the men scares away customers.

Moorpark officials have responded by exploring possible alternative locations for the laborers’ hiring site.

Mayor Paul Lawrason said the City Council has decided to handle the issue locally, including exploring possible alternative hiring sites for the workers.

“I would be a little disappointed if they chose to come in for any reason” other than to enforce immigration laws, Lawrason said.

“I would hope that they would hold off, but should they decide to come in I understand it completely,” Lawrason said.

“We are not inviting them into Moorpark as a way of dealing with the day laborer issue,” Perez said.

The director of a county public service agency that has been working with the Moorpark day laborers said most of the men are legal immigrants.

“The majority there are documented folks and residents of Moorpark,” said Marcos Vargas, executive director of El Concilio del Condado de Ventura.

And many of the day laborers who addressed the City Council recently about the hiring site identified themselves as local residents.

Brechtel said the INS will decide within the next few days if Moorpark will be included in a larger enforcement program unveiled last month by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

The congressman asked INS officials to put together a task force to conduct sweeps in Agoura Hills and other areas of his district where he has received complaints about day laborers.

Gallegly said Wednesday that he had not asked INS officials to include Moorpark in the special enforcement program because the city had not specifically requested his help.

But Gallegly said that if the INS believes there is a problem with illegal immigrants in Moorpark, it should step up its enforcement there.

“A law enforcement agency, whether it be the INS or the FBI, doesn’t need the permission of a congressman to go in and enforce the law,” he said. “They not only have the right but the responsibility, if they believe there is a problem in the area, to go in and enforce the law,” he said.

Times correspondent Maia Davis contributed to this story.