Nannies Criticize the Outcry Over Zoe Baird Nomination : Labor: They say the hiring of immigrants, which cost her a Cabinet post, is common and fills a need.

Marta Vilma Garcia, cradling a blonde doll in her arms, has little sympathy for people who pillory Zoe Baird for hiring an illegal Peruvian immigrant to take care of her son.

“They shouldn’t have blamed her for hiring someone without papers,” said Garcia, who sat Friday with other nannies--most of them illegal immigrants--at the tip of Silver Lake, where, on a grassy knoll, she watched over Frances, a 1 1/2-year-old girl she cares for every day. “We need to be able to help people whose situation at home is desperate. We all come here for a reason.” Indeed, illegal nannies in Los Angeles who are pushing strollers at parks around the city were shaking their heads in disbelief that a woman appointed to be President Clinton’s attorney general had to withdraw her nomination because she hired illegal immigrants for a job they know few Americans will take. They said they are grateful for jobs that often entail round-the-clock availability and long work hours for little pay but represent a step up from desperate lives in such places as war-torn El Salvador and Guatemala.

That was certainly true for Marta Vilma Garcia. Two years ago, she heard that her husband, like many in the Salvadoran military, had become the target of the guerrillas bent on political change. In her neighborhood, she had often seen the guerrillas kill military men’s wives and entire families. Paralyzed with fear, she said, she left her three children with her mother in San Salvador and began the three-month trek north, mostly by foot, often begging for food and water along the way. “I heard the guerrillas were coming for me,” she said, nervously pulling strands of dark black hair from her face.

Now she defends her right to make $200 a week caring for two girls, saying that most nannies in her area are here illegally, and that she does not believe parents could find enough Americans willing to work her hours for such pay. Since she has been here, she has seen her own three children only in photographs.

“When you get here, you just want to work. You take what you can to have money to send your children,” she said. “You can only work at this. I don’t speak English. This is what I can get.”

Similarly, nanny employment agencies said they expect little change in those who care for America’s children because of the flap over Baird’s employment of an illegal immigrant.

“Like Zoe, people want the best child care. No one is going to fire their help if they think they are getting good care and their child is attached to the care-giver,” said Claudia Kahn, a partner in Baby Buddies Agency Inc., a Beverly Hills nanny placement company. Kahn said she has not noticed any recent increase in questions about the issue from potential clients.

According to Kahn, it’s a simple issue of supply in Los Angeles, where, by some estimates, 80% of all domestics are hired illegally. “In America, who wants to grow up to be a domestic?” Kahn said. Anne Kamsvaag, a workers rights project coordinator with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, said some nannies here earn as little as $1 an hour.

Kahn said only 10% to 20% of upper-class clients who call her stipulate that they want a nanny whose papers are in order.

Those who run the agencies say most of those in need of a nanny’s service cannot afford the typical $400 to $450 weekly fee. “If you pay top dollar I think you can find legal child care nearly anywhere. But for the vast majority of us on limited budgets, we take the most affordable care you can find. The ability to pay is the biggest issue,” said Wendy Lazarus, vice president of Children Now, a children’s advocacy group.

Kahn added that even if people could afford the high fees, the scant supply of nannies who are here legally could not keep up with demand. “Most Los Angeles agencies just can’t find legal nannies,” she said.

Other agency workers conceded privately that at least half of all such agency placements are of nannies who are in the country illegally, even though this clearly violates the law. Many agencies in Los Angeles have lobbies that are filled with “women pretty much off the boat, holding their suitcases,” Kahn said.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, they said, has largely let such practices go unchallenged. It is the lack of INS scrutiny, among other things, that draws a large proportion of women who come to the United States illegally into child care, many nannies say. “Many of us are afraid. There are more INS raids in the garment factories. There is the fear of the INS,” said Carmen, another nanny at the Silver Lake park who came to the United States two decades ago from Guatemala.

Others, such as Maria, say working as a live-in nanny allows them to have a free roof over their heads. “If you are not legal, there are no other real options,” said Maria, who is paid $200 cash each week, plus food and a place to stay.

“We don’t feel like we are rich,” said Andrea Hernandez, another nanny across town at Tarzana Park, as she watched over 2-year-old Zachary. “But we sit at the table of rich people.” Hernandez once worked illegally but has since become a legal resident.

Back at the Silver Lake Recreation Center, the nannies, after several hours of socializing and watching the children play on the orange and blue jungle gym, gathered their belongings to head back to their adopted homes.

“It is unjust to require papers of us. These people just want someone who is best for their child. We are working at honorable jobs that others don’t want to do. It’s better to have us working at something good than at something bad, like selling drugs, to survive,” Carmen said as she wheeled her stroller out the park’s gates. “Illegals have the same need to work, to feed themselves, as legal people do. We are doing good work.”