Sheriff Acts on Laborers’ Complaints

Addressing a situation that has festered for years, Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona announced Tuesday a first-of-its-kind review of the way his department treats day laborers and promised guidelines on when deputies should report suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities.

The move comes about two months after day laborers in Lake Forest alleged that deputies hurled ethnic slurs at them, harassed them while they waited for work and prevented them from entering local businesses and using public telephones. The complaint, filed with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, focused public attention on the sometimes rocky relationship between law enforcement and day laborers in Orange County.

Carona said the probe found no evidence to support the allegations of mistreatment listed in the complaint, but he said he thinks relations with the largely Latino pool of day laborers needs to be improved.

Speaking at a media conference at his Santa Ana headquarters, the sheriff outlined plans for community meetings on the issue and to introduce training for deputies on dealing with immigrants.

Though some day laborers expressed skepticism, one Latino activist enthusiastically endorsed the initiative, saying the effort is unheard of in the Sheriff’s Department.

“An important law enforcement agency has outstretched a hand and said, ‘Come work with us, help us find a solution,’ ” said Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County. He expressed hope that the sentiment will spread to other local law-enforcement agencies.

The Sheriff’s Department has come under fire in the past for what critics described as heavy-handed treatment of day laborers. In 1996, for example, the Sheriff’s Department conducted a “sting operation” at one day-labor site that resulted in 10 arrests. Some of the laborers accused deputies of entrapment.

Further, some cities, including Lake Forest, have enacted tough ordinances that ban soliciting work in public. Both employer and worker can be ticketed.

The issue in some instances has pitted residents, police and business owners against the laborers and Latino activists, who complain that attempts to ban people from seeking work amount to discrimination. Activists are challenging such local ordinances in federal court.

Carona’s action plan calls for regular community meetings at which residents, day laborers, business owners and city officials can seek solutions.

The sheriff said he also will recommend that city officials explore remedies such as building a center where laborers can wait for work, rather than congregating on street corners.

Carona’s investigation drew praise from an official with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. “We’re very satisfied with the findings,” Victor Narro said. “This is one of the most detailed investigations that I’ve ever experienced.”

Sheriff’s officials said that Spanish-speaking plainclothes investigators interviewed more than 50 day laborers, as well as dozens of business owners and city officials, during the probe. Deputies could substantiate only one allegation--that a deputy threw a baton at a laborer who fled after hitting the officer in the chest, Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo said. The action did not violate department procedure, he said.

But at the Lake Forest strip mall where the harassment was alleged to have occurred, laborers on Tuesday grumbled about the investigation’s conclusion.

“It’s too bad that they deny it. They’re lying,” said Jose Hernandez of Lake Forest.

Pablo Garcia, who lives in Santa Ana but goes to Lake Forest to seek work gardening or painting for $6 to $10 an hour, said of deputies: “Now I’m afraid they’ll come again.”

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Carona promised that his department will change the way it deals with laborers and Latino immigrants. A key issue, he said, is whether deputies should report undocumented workers to immigration authorities. Because the department does not have a policy, he said, deputies decide for themselves whether to make a report to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The Lake Forest day laborers had accused deputies of detaining some of them and turning them over to the INS. The federal agency confirmed at the time that Orange County deputies had handed over seven men, six of whom were voluntarily returned to Mexico.

Immigration officials said there are no laws compelling police to alert federal authorities about undocumented workers. Many local agencies, including the Santa Ana and Anaheim police departments, contact the INS about citizenship issues only for people arrested in connection with crimes.