Border Patrol Agents Arrest Day Laborers

The day laborers who gather each morning on a Moorpark street corner and wait for work received a visit from the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service this week that ended in several arrests.

Border Patrol agents raided the laborers’ meeting place at the corner of High Street and Spring Road on Tuesday morning and arrested seven men for entering the country illegally, said Senior Patrol Agent Neil Jensen. Another raid earlier that morning in the Santa Rosa Valley ended with the arrest of two men.

All were Mexican citizens, Jensen said, and would be escorted to the border as soon as possible.

The raids came after complaints from residents in both areas that the workers, all male, were intimidating female passersby and urinating in public.

Similar complaints have provoked a series of often-heated discussions at Moorpark City Council meetings. In August, the council approved an ordinance making it illegal for workers to solicit business while standing on public streets or sidewalks.

Jensen said agents believed that some of the workers might be in the country illegally. When the agents arrived on High Street, about 20 men fled.

About 15 men were legal residents or immigrants.

Jensen said that although agents may perform similar raids in the future, they currently have no plans to do so. The small Camarillo office usually specializes in repatriating illegal immigrants arrested for other crimes, he said.