Hired for a Day

KWAME HOLMAN:

On one extremely cold morning in the town of Herndon, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., a group of mostly Latino men, some of them illegal immigrants, gathered as they have for years hoping to be hired for temporary jobs.

But for the first time they did so at a site created, regulated, and paid for by the town itself.

SPOKESMAN (Translated):

Everyone who can speak English gets a red ticket and blue ticket too.

KWAME HOLMAN:

The new site was Herndon's response to growing unhappiness among residents with the longstanding informal gathering place the day laborers had been using, a 7-11 parking lot in the center of town.

Ann Null is a member of the Herndon Town Council.

ANN NULL:

There are some days when there are 150 single at one location, urinating and defecating in public, drunkenness in public and we've had overcrowding and excessive occupancy in our surrounding homes, apartments, townhouses.

A lot of people are uncomfortable stopping at that 7-11 or even walking in that neighborhood.

KWAME HOLMAN:

The new site will provide shelter, bathrooms and eventually English classes for the laborers, and parking for those who want to hire them — mostly homebuilders and homeowners looking for help with landscaping and other household jobs.

Though some of the men are known to be undocumented immigrants, Herndon Mayor Mike O'Reilly says his responsibility was to defuse community tension over the laborers.

MAYOR MICHAEL O’REILLY:

We could not solve or begin to solve or address national immigration issues which had been raised, but we could try to do something about the local problem of too many people standing on a corner looking for work.

SPOKESMAN:

When the mayor was elected, his oath of office does not allow him to pick and choose laws he will enforce. He is obligated to enforce all of them, and we feel that he is not doing that.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Herndon resident George Taplin fought for four months to stop the town from opening the official day laborer site, calling it an endorsement of illegal immigration.

GEORGE TAPLIN:

Approximately 85 percent or more of people in the day labor sites throughout the country and including the ones here in Fairfax County are here in this country illegally.

SPOKESPERSON:

I am opposed to putting a day laborer site at the old police station.

KWAME HOLMAN:

During long days of town council debate last summer over the day laborer site, Taplin turned to the Minutemen for help. The Minutemen are citizen activists in the southwest who have gained national attention for their patrols of the border with Mexico aimed at nabbing illegal immigrants. Taplin got permission to form a Minutemen chapter in Herndon.

GEORGE TAPLIN:

We've modeled our group on the highly successful community watch program in use throughout the country. We are non-confrontational, we carry no weapons, although by law we are entitled to, and do absolutely no law enforcement; we simply observe and report.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Over the summer, Taplin and his members photographed the license plates of people who picked up workers to report them to the IRS and state tax officials to make sure they were properly permitted to hire day laborers.

In the process, Herndon and its town-funded day-laborer site drew national press coverage as a symbol of the volatile debate over illegal immigration.

SPOKESPERSON:

WMAL 630 Radio is tracking the illegal immigration debate. When callers were asked to dial up Herndon City Hall to discuss the proposed day laborer center there were so many calls it jammed the switchboard.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Tensions have risen in communities such as Herndon, where economic growth drives demand for labor. In recent years, Herndon has grown from a small, mostly white, rural town to a small city, where a quarter of the residents are Latino and another 20 percent non-white.

JOEL MILLS:

A lot of people try to characterize this issue as an immigration issue. We see it as an economic issue. The housing boom that drove — driven the unemployment rate down to below 3 percent in our county has created a real demand for labor and has created the situation that we have now, more than any other factor.

JOEL MILLS:

Good evening Mayor, members of the town council.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Joel Mills heads a community group called Project Hope and Harmony, and helped win approval of the new day laborer site. He says it's a mistake to assume the people who will use it are predominately illegal immigrants.

JOEL MILLS:

It's very easy to oversimplify the issue and say all those folks standing out on the corner are undocumented and we just need to swoop in there, pick them up and send them back across the border. But what we've, in fact, found is that the one thing most of them have in common with a few exceptions is that they don't speak English and that is their greatest barrier to full-time employment.

KWAME HOLMAN:

For the record, it is illegal to hire undocumented workers, but employers have two to three days before they're required to verify documentation. By then, many have hired new workers, and some employers, according to critics, never ask the workers for Social Security cards or driver's licenses. In any event, those documents are easily forged.

Ediltrudis Aguilar admits he is undocumented. He's been in Herndon for the last four years and shares a friend's apartment with his 19-year-old son.

EDILTRUDIS AGUILAR (Translated):

You have to pay for food and living expenses and often send money to your family, to your children, I have 8 children who are with my wife.

KWAME HOLMAN:

He says most of the $150 a week he earns is sent to his wife and other children in their small, poor town in Honduras. He says he's not afraid to admit his undocumented status.

EDILTRUDIS AGUILAR (Translated):

You know, this is a country that loves us, second we are here because yes, we want a better life for our children. I have been an honest man, a humble man and everywhere I walk I behave well, I behalf like a gentleman, one has to.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Ediltrudis Aguilar said the arrival of the Minutemen disrupts, but has not deterred, day laborers.

EDILTRUDIS AGUILAR (Translated):

The only thing about the Minutemen, really, is that they don't hurt anyone like that.

KWAME HOLMAN:

But George Taplin believes the minutemen's tactics will convince the illegal day laborers to leave Herndon.

GEORGE TAPLIN:

I'll point you to what is currently happening in East Hampton, Long Island. In a very, very liberal democratic area of the country, the police department goes out to what used to be their day labor site and they photograph the — they're there to photograph the employers and the day workers. And since they've been doing it, their labor site has gone away, and they don't have one any more in East Hampton. So it only took them seven days to disestablish their site.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Landscaping contractor Bill Farrar doesn't want that to happen in Herndon. He's been using day laborers for 26 years and now plans to hire them from the new, town-funded site.

BILL FARRAR:

I have got all the toys to do all the fancy work, tree spade trucks and loaders, backhoe and stuff to do all that work, but we still need to do hand labor work and I can just pick a few fellows up at the day labor site — the informal day labor site in Herndon, and they just work– all you see is back sides and elbows and they're grateful for the work and I'm grateful for what they do.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Farrar says he's mindful of staying within the law.

BILL FARRAR:

We're following the rules, and my records are kept straight. So I'm not having any problems with whether they're documented or non-documented. They're here. My idea is, they're here, they want to work. They are not drawing unemployment and welfare and getting social services.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Even after last week's opening, the challenges to Herndon's day laborer site will continue for a while. A conservative legal group is suing the town demanding it close the site, arguing it promotes illegal immigration.