Labor center has support

Laguna Beach’s Day Labor Center has been under fire from anti-illegal immigration groups for more than a year, but one local official who has targeted illegal immigration as his top priority supports the center.

State Sen. Tom Harman believes the Laguna Beach Day Labor Center should continue in operation — but should not serve illegal immigrants.

Harman is on common ground with David Peck of the Crosscultural Council, the nonprofit group which operates the Laguna Beach Day Labor Center.

Peck agrees that illegal immigrants should not be given jobs through the center, but says that because the center serves only as a go-between, a “matchmaker” between job-seekers and employers, the center cannot require proof of legal status from prospective workers.

Instead, employers should verify that prospective employees are legally able to work, Peck said.

“I agree with him [Harman],” Peck said. “Employers ought to verify that people are who they say they are. We’re the matchmakers, we fix people up, but they [employers and employees] work out the payment and the nature of the job. It’s the employer’s job to check on these things.”

Harman, who in his first term as a state senator has made illegal immigration a top legislative priority, thinks the Laguna Day Labor Center should be operated like one in Huntington Beach, which he claims verifies the legal status of prospective employees.

“You must have a ‘green card’ [legal residency permit] in Huntington Beach,” Harman said.

He said he voted for the job center in Huntington Beach as a City Council member because of the problems associated with day labor-seekers congregating in shopping centers.

“You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t” regarding the labor centers, Harman said, referring to the controversy generated by the facilities versus the problem of job-seekers soliciting work on streets and near shopping centers. “But we should not give illegals help in finding work.”

But while the Huntington Beach center requires proof of identification for prospective workers, its staff does not verify immigration status, according to a city official.

The Huntington Beach job center requires identification in some form but does not verify the immigration status of prospective employees, said Jim Lamb, project manager with the city’s Economic Development department, which oversees the center.

“We ask for ID, and if they give it to us and it looks OK, we don’t go further,” Lamb said. The identification can be a Social Security card, driver’s license or other form of documentation.

“This is not an immigration point,” Lamb stressed.

“The idea is to give people a safe place to congregate. If we shut down, those 30 to 40 people would go to the street corners [to solicit work]. It’s a way to solve a problem, and it’s not our job to enforce immigration laws.”

Lamb says that in the center’s 10 years of operation there have been no protests of its operation or demands that it be shut down, as has happened in Laguna Beach and Costa Mesa, which closed its center down last year after a lengthy public debate.

The Huntington Beach center was begun by the city’s police department, which operated it for several years and is now run by the city in partnership with Coastline Community College, Lamb said. The center is funded in part by the city and in part by federal community development block grants.

The Huntington Beach center is in an industrial part of town, and the center itself is operated on a day-to-day basis by Coastline Community College as a One-Stop job center providing a variety of employer-employee services.

Lamb said that because the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of anyone to solicit work — regardless of immigration status — efforts to control or restrict job-seekers have been routinely attacked in court.

“We operate on a carrot-and-stick basis, giving people a safe place to congregate and a place to wait for jobs, and we try to get wages in the $9 to $10 range and make sure the employers give them a ride to and from the job and lunch if they’re working all day,” Lamb said.

Recently, the Huntington Beach police department distributed fliers advising that it is against the law to congregate within 25 feet of a public driveway, which resulted in “a spike” in the numbers at the job center, Lamb said.

In Laguna Beach, a city ordinance prohibits soliciting work except at the designated labor center on Laguna Canyon Road, and city officials have expressed a concern that eliminating the designated spot would make the anti-solicitation ordinance unenforceable.

Harman, a Republican, recently proposed a bill that would make being in the state illegally a trespassing violation, punishable as a misdemeanor, with jail time and/or a fine.

He doesn’t give the bill, SB 3, much of a chance in the Democratic-controlled state legislature.

Harman toured El Centro recently as a guest of the U.S. Border Patrol to learn more about immigration issues.

He says that he supports a guest worker program because foreign labor is needed to fill jobs that are unable to be filled by U.S. citizens.

He also supports a program proposed by the Border Patrol that would give border agents the authority of police officers, so the agents could extend their law enforcement efforts and catch more illegals.

Peck also agrees with Harman on the guest-worker issue.

“We hope the new [Democratic-controlled] Congress will clarify everything,” Peck said. “We need immigration reform with a path to citizenship and a guest-worker program.”

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Should the Laguna Beach Day Labor Center be required to verify the immigration status of workers or should employers do so? Write us at P.O. Box 248, Laguna Beach, CA, 92652, e-mail us at coastlinepilot@latimes.com or fax us at 494-8979. Please give your name and tell us your home address and phone number for verification purposes only.