Proposal to Keep Mexican Workers at Home Killed

An Orange County proposal seeking the help of the Mexican government to warn immigrants about the local recession was withdrawn Tuesday because it did not have enough support at the California League of Cities annual conference in San Francisco.

“We asked to withdraw it after we learned we could not get enough support for passage,” said Bill Bamattre, a Dana Point council member who helped push the unusual proposal.

Bamattre said the resolution on immigration was recommended by the Dana Point City Council and approved by representatives from Orange County’s 29 member cities on Aug. 8.

Backers had hoped the resolution would encourage a “cooperative” effort with the Mexican government to provide “accurate information” to Mexican citizens on work and housing opportunities in California.

But after making a presentation before the League’s Community Services Committee, supporters did not believe they could get enough votes for the resolution to pass, Bamattre said.

“The committee felt the resolution should have a broader perspective and they also thought it was just a Dana Point problem. . . . We needed to do our homework a little better,” Bamattre added.

The Dana Point Labor Service, a city-funded telephone exchange program primarily for employers and Spanish-speaking day workers, “has been inundated,” Bamattre said. About 15 to 20 people a day are placed, but there is a waiting list of 800 men and women.

The resolution, Bamattre said, was an attempt to warn immigrants in their native country of the poor prospects of finding a job and affordable housing not only in Dana Point but throughout Orange County.