Request for info from LEO about daylaborers

[Spreadfire Arms]

i think the issue that the moderator is trying to bring up is that there seem to be two sets of rules regarding LE contact.

if you are a legal immigrant or a citizen: LE has no right to hassle you

if you are an illegal alien: LE has every right to hassle you

the issue is that we can't have it both ways, since it is difficult for a LE officer to look at someone and guess if that person is illegal or legal. i think that would be considered some sort of racial profiling.

going back to MMP in Houston, which is an entirely different thread, there is a difference between MMP (civilians) assuming and treating someone like a suspected illegal alien is acceptable, while the same action by an LE officer is considered police harassment.

my personal opinion, is that MMP will not be welcomed in Houston, and that HPD will be watching MMP volunteers like a hawk. if one of them even commits even the smallest crime, like jaywalking, i'm sure HPD will be there to issue a citation. further, if one happens to be carrying, and is suspected by HPD of committing a crime, i'm sure that will make national headlines.

it will be a tough thing to work MMP in a big city vs. on the remote desert border areas. it will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Control Group]

This is no different than what cops do all the time. They see some suspicious activity, stop to question some individuals, and based on what the individual says, proceed from there. I’d wager that the majority of the time, the person being questioned doesn’t even know that is what is going on. There is nothing wrong with a cop stopping to ask an individual questions. We’ve already established that the individual doesn’t necessarily have to answer those questions. If he chooses to answer those questions, and by so doing, incriminates himself, then it’s his bad. I don’t see the problem here. It is, in essence, what police work is all about.

First, that it's "what cops do all the time" doesn't mean that it's necessarily right. In this case, however, as long as not answering is not, in itself, valid reason to detain me, then I don't see a problem there, either. If an officer asks me something, and I just ignore him, I should be allowed to go about my business unhassled. As long as that's the case, I have no problem with it.

Once my not answering causes, in itself, "reasonable suspicion," a line has been crossed that I don't think should be. Similarly, if an officer asks to search my vehicle and I decline, that refusal should not cause, in itself, "reasonable suspicion."

(All that being said, IRL if an officer stopped me on the street and asked for ID, I admit I would probably provide it. I certainly did one evening in '95, when two friends and I were walking down the street and chatting - we were stopped by a squad car with its lights on, and told to show our IDs)

 

[phantomak47]

I am in the landscaping buissness here in Houston and I run a solo operation.

Most landscapers here that need help cant find legal people to work, so there only option is to use illegal help. I am not saying that this is right , because they are illegals, but they are the only people that will work.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Most landscapers here that need help cant find legal people to work, so there only option is to use illegal help. I am not saying that this is right , because they are illegals, but they are the only people that will work.

Can't find legal people to work?

Or don't want to pay what legal people would want to be paid?

There is a difference. I really don't believe the unemployment rate in Houston is zero percent.

 

[Moonclip]

Hawkmoon is 100% correct. The love of $ really is the root of all evil sometimes. I can just about guarantee you if you pay someone a decent living wage you would find plenty of people who will work.

People who hire illegals are traitors in my book and worse than the actual illegals. That illegal fellow is driven out of necessity weather right or wrong, the employer in many cases is driven out of greed.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

In Washington DC there are plenty of people capable of working,
but hard "Manuel Labor" is staffed by people that won't qualify for welfare.

Verizon is trenching my neighborhood this month,
the pick axe crew is 90 percent central american

Herndon Approves Day Labor Center

Immigration Called 'Out of Our Control'

By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 18, 2005; Page A01


The Herndon Town Council last night approved the creation of a formal, taxpayer-funded gathering spot for day laborers, saying the chaos in a 7-Eleven parking lot where the workers now gather would only worsen if it did nothing.

The council members, in a 5 to 2 vote that several called the hardest decision in their public service, said they did not want to sanction illegal immigration, the chief concern of opponents of the center. Many of the workers the facility would serve are in the United States illegally from Mexico and Central America.

But council members said they were helpless in the face of what they called a federal failure to police U.S. borders. They said it was their responsibility to bring order to a neighborhood nuisance that had become the town's most divisive issue in recent history.

"Here we sit, expecting this local government to resolve a national immigration problem that is out of our control," council member Harlon Reece said before the vote.

The vote, which came after the fifth hearing on the issue since last month, culminated a tense summer in the small town in northwest Fairfax County, which has been drawn into a national debate on immigration policy, human rights and the role of local governments in international issues.

Project Hope and Harmony, a social services agency, was seeking a permit to build and operate a worker center near the Loudoun County line. The approval means the town will help fund the center with $175,000 in public money.

The dissenters said a vote to spend public money on a laborer site would amount to an endorsement of illegal immigration.

Still, council member Dennis D. Husch, who opposed the measure along with Ann V. Null, denounced the region's representatives in Congress. "Shame on them for their cowardly retreat," Husch said.

In recent weeks, radio talk shows, cable news and Internet blogs fumed that taxpayer money would help immigrants who might be in the country illegally. They advised rounding up such immigrants instead.

Some supporters of the site countered with accusations of racism. But at its core, the debate reflected the struggle in Herndon and other Washington suburbs to integrate a steady flow of new immigrants -- those here legally and illegally.

"This has been a horrendously difficult issue," Mayor Michael O'Reilly said. He said every worker has a constitutional right to "stand on a street corner whether they have documents or not."

As a condition of the permit granted to Project Hope, the nonprofit group must distribute information to contractors telling them that hiring undocumented immigrants is illegal. But Project Hope officials said they will not ask the laborers to disclose their status.

The speakers last night -- the carry-over crowd from a seven-hour hearing Tuesday in Herndon's small council chambers -- were evenly split about the proposed site as they testified before the television cameras that lined the aisles.

Opponents from Herndon and as far away as Colorado called for stepped-up police enforcement, legislative changes and an end to the hiring of undocumented workers. Some homeowners said the day laborers are sinking property values. And they said that by using public money to help the workers, Herndon would be committing a crime by supporting illegal immigration.

Supporters cited the biblical exhortation to love thy neighbor and begged the council not to allow the community to turn its back on its less-fortunate members. They said the problem is not immigration but a neighborhood conflict over noise, littering and safety.

"This controversy will not disappear if we . . . maintain the status quo," said Stef Woods, a lawyer for Just Neighbors, a group that helps immigrants.

Each side blamed the other for the animosity in the town, where foreign-born residents now make up 38 percent of the 22,000 residents.

"I am not a bigot," said Cathy McNary of Herndon, whose family is from the Philippines. "I cleaned bathrooms. . . . But I chose Herndon to raise my family because it was a town known for safety. Now it is known as a place where the day laborers may be."

Undercurrents of race and history resonated on both sides.

One speaker Tuesday night testified that the day laborers represent the "comeuppance of the white man" over the conquest of Native Americans hundreds of years ago.

Several day laborers also stepped forward to plead for an organized place to gather.

"We want a secure site, because our lives are in danger when the contractors leave us on the road," Eric Arauz said through an interpreter. "We are honest workers, not criminals, like they say."

 

[Bubbles]

Hey Harry, where are you? Verizon's working on Sterling Blvd near my house now.

To keep thread on-topic - if day laborers aren't discouraged, eventually you too will also have your tax dollars used to subsidize illegal activity.

 

[phantomak47]

how about $9.00 an hour and you still cant get legal guys in Houston.

 

[thorn726]

id have to say you would be suprised- i pay these maroons upwards of $15 per hour sometimes- to throw junk into a dump truck- and it is still hard to find americans, but i find them.
you have to prod them into it a little, but at least theyre not illegals.

landscaping work , a bunch of these jobs- hate to admit it but it is tougher than you think to find help you can afford to pay and still survive.

workers have gotten way too "entitled"
sure you're working- but did you pay $15k for equiptment, run the ads, get the job, do the estimate?
makes me nuts , these losers attitudes especially considering what they get paid.

as far as legality- around here there are day labor pickup zones- at least one in berkeley, one in oakland, probably more- laborers can legally hang out and wait for work there, but cna be ticketed for loitering or something if they are outside the work area. not that it is enforced much.

if you think you are going to make them go away in Ca, forget it.
it goes all the way up the line.
homeowners know too well their contractor could pay latinos less and do their job for less.
its just too widespread. i am like the only small biz in the state that goes out of his way to hire americans vs illegals, and i really dont provide all that much.

 

[Sam]

Discourage them your self. Pull your car upto the closed parking space, step out, and yell as loudly as possible: La Migra! está en la manera, funcionamiento como infierno o usted es límite de Mexcio!*

They will leave rather quickly, and it's perfectly legal.

Works at, Lowes, Home Depot, 84, Furrows, all same same.

After a couple doses of that they look too tired to work anyway and no one will hire them.

Sam

* "Immigration is on the way, run like H@!! or you're Mexico bound"

 

[c_yeager]

Discourage them your self. Pull your car upto the closed parking space, step out, and yell as loudly as possible: La Migra! está en la manera, funcionamiento como infierno o usted es límite de Mexcio!*

They will leave rather quickly, and it's perfectly legal.

If i ever right my "guide to getting criminaly tresspassed from retailors" im going to steal this.