Coalition Counsels Day Laborers on Immigrants’ Rights

Immigrants’ rights groups Wednesday began passing out flyers in the city of Orange to advise day laborers of their legal rights as police arrested 10 more men for misdemeanor violations and turned them over to the U.S. Border Patrol for possible deportation.

The arrests brought to 116 the number of men arrested and handed over to immigration authorities since Orange police last Wednesday began their tough new policy targeting Latino laborers gathering on street corners in search of work.

City and police officials have said the policy began after local business owners and residents complained that the Spanish-speaking laborers, many of whom are undocumented and who on some days number in the hundreds, create a public nuisance while they wait along East Chapman Avenue.

Police have been stopping people for jaywalking, loitering, driving without seat belts and other misdemeanor infractions. Those who cannot provide proof of legal residency are turned over to the Border Patrol for possible return to Mexico.

On Wednesday, coalition members handed out to laborers in the east Orange area an estimated 250 information packets that outline their legal rights.

“People were hungry for them,” said Robin Blackwell, coordinator of the Orange County Coalition for Immigrants’ Rights, which is composed of church and legal groups. “They need to know they don’t have to sign the salida (the voluntary departure form).”

Packets included cards advising law enforcement authorities in English and Spanish that the cardholders want to remain silent and be provided with a list of free or low-cost legal service agencies.

The coalition is having problems finding free legal assistance for illegal aliens in Orange County, Blackwell said. “There is a long list (of such agencies) in L.A. but not down here,” she said.

American Civil Liberties Union lawyers are considering legal action against the city, Blackwell added. ACLU officials could not be reached for comment.

Police are “pulling people over because they’re brown-skinned,” Blackwell said. “They are not responding to neighborhood complaints--that people were urinating or drinking in public.”

Orange Police Sgt. Timm Browne said the crackdown will continue “indefinitely.” The number of men standing along the mile-long stretch of Chapman and surrounding streets dropped from about 300 a day to between 125 and 175 by Wednesday, he said.

Some business owners agreed that the eight-day crackdown is reducing the number of men gathering on street corners and in parking lots between Yorba and Hewes streets.

Herb Beadle, a veterinarian, said the half-dozen men who usually gather in front of his clinic each morning have not been there since the sweeps began.

“They hang out in the driveway, they make comments to the gals, they urinate and defecate behind the building,” said Beadle, who has been at the same location the past 17 years. “I called the police several times in the past, and they always said they couldn’t do anything. . . .

“I have empathy for where these people are coming from . . . but we were just being inundated.”

A block away, hardware store owner Cecil Pearson agreed that the numbers are down. Before the sweeps, as many as 75 men might gather outside his shop each morning, he said.

And while his business is good, he said, it would be even better if the men were gone.

“People don’t like to trade where there’s mobs standing around. I’ve had women call me up and ask if there’s a mob out there and if it’s OK to come in,” Pearson said. “If they (the police) continue to do like they have been, it would probably stop.”

City officials say the crackdown is necessary because the number of men congregating along Chapman has increased tremendously in recent years, despite periodic sweeps by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and attempts to persuade the men to move.

The Orange Police Department’s new policy contrasts sharply with those of most law enforcement agencies in Southern California.

Cmdr. William Booth, Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, said the LAPD considers violations of immigration law to be a federal rather than a local concern and does not routinely ask misdemeanor violators about their residency status.

“It (determining residency status) is not a priority of ours,” Booth said. “If we arrest someone for a serious crime and we find out that they’re here illegally, we will . . . simply notify the INS and we will go ahead and prosecute. . . . Just as we would if they were born here.”