INS Cracks Down on Firms Using Day Laborer Centers : Immigration: L.A. officials say agents have broken gentleman’s agreement not to raid programs. Agency says no one has permission to violate law.

Agents of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service have begun cracking down on employers who hire workers at two city-sponsored day labor sites, breaking what city officials believed was an informal understanding to leave the sites undisturbed.

Over the last two weeks, city officials said, INS agents have followed several employers as they left the sites and cited them for illegally hiring undocumented workers.

Although agents have made less than a handful of citations, reports of INS investigations have frightened some workers and employers at the sites, created two years ago after neighborhood residents complained about day laborers, who were sometimes unruly, at corners scattered around the city.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores said the INS activities jeopardize one of the few efforts to provide an organized and humane hiring area for day laborers, many of whom are in the country illegally.

“I’m really disappointed they’re doing this,” Flores said. “It doesn’t accomplish anything but send the men and the employers back to the streets.”

INS Los Angeles District Director Robert M. Moschorak confirmed that the agency is investigating immigration violations at the two city-run sites, as it does at other corners where day laborers gather.

But he disputed the notion that the enforcement was a break from policy.

“We support the hiring hall concept if it is going to take people off the streets. That’s a fine concept,” he said. “But it gives no one the right to violate the law. We’re pursuing investigations we see as appropriate.”

The city-sponsored day labor sites were created in 1989 in response to complaints about loitering, noise and littering at corners throughout the city, some of which drew more than 100 job-seekers a day.

The city decided to control the proliferation of new day labor sites by opening hiring centers, hoping it would draw laborers away from other areas.

Instead of residential and commercial neighborhoods, the city chose more isolated spots where the congregation of job-seekers would be less visible. To avoid the frantic dash for jobs that takes place at informal gathering places, the city imposed a more organized system in which jobs are provided through a lottery.

The city’s first site was opened on a corner of Harbor Regional Park, followed a year later by a second site in North Hollywood.

The success of the sites depended in part on the cooperation of the INS. City officials believed they had a gentlemen’s agreement that the agency would enforce the law against illegal immigrants and employers only if there were complaints.

Moschorak said that Ben Davidian, former INS Western Region commissioner, stated the agency would not conduct raids at the sites to avoid disrupting the city’s program.

But Davidian added that the INS reserved the right to investigate and cite employers who illegally hired undocumented workers as it would at any other day labor corner, Moschorak said. Violation of employer sanctions law carries a fine of up to $1,000. Homeowners who hire day laborers for sporadic domestic work are exempt from the law.

City workers said they knew of no INS investigations at the two sites in the last two years, leading them to believe the agency was content to concentrate on the informal hiring corners.

Anne Kamsvaag, attorney for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said the INS enforcement was counter-productive.

“If they’re going to keep enforcing at the city hiring halls, what they will do is undermine the city’s project,” she said. “They can’t pretend their enforcement has no consequences. Laws are broken every day and agencies make decisions on where to put their resources and where they shouldn’t.”

Moschorak said the INS has made no change from its previous policy and is only taking action against employers because of information developed by investigators.

“We can’t look the other way when violations occur,” Moschorak said. “The city hiring halls are not sanctuaries.”