EDITORIAL: Hiring site upheld

Laguna Beach scored a legal and political victory recently, when the Fourth Appellate District Court of Appeals upheld on Nov. 26 the 2007 ruling of Superior Court Judge Gregory Munoz that the city was not violating federal immigration laws by helping to fund the Day Labor Hiring Site on Laguna Canyon Road.

The battle over the hiring site “” a small stretch of land that was formerly owned by Caltrans as a right-of-way “” has been festering since 2005, when supporters of the Minuteman Project began demonstrating against the city’s participation in the site due to the likelihood that illegal immigrants were getting jobs there. They pointed to the fact that job-seekers are not required by the operators “” the South County Crosscultural Council “” to prove they are in the country legally in order to register and obtain day jobs. In addition, the police department has made it clear that immigration authorities would not be called in to investigate possible illegals. Both of these operating methods were necessary, the city maintains, to attract job-seekers and get them off the streets.

Munoz ruled that plaintiffs Eileen Garcia and her husband, George Riviere, were wrong in their assertion the city was breaking the law and their tax money was being used illegally, and further ruled the hiring site is a public benefit for taxpayers.

The appeals court decision is somewhat more technical, but basically says that because the city isn’t directly responsible for the site’s operation, the city can’t be held responsible if some illegals do, in fact, get work there. The ruling states, in part: “The city does not encourage illegal aliens to enter or reside in the United States.”

The hiring site has been operating since 1993, after the City Council voted to ban people from soliciting work on public streets and sidewalks. The ban was enacted after complaints from residents, primarily in North Laguna, whose neighborhood was inundated with job-seekers.

Under the city law, the only place where it is legal to freely solicit employment is at the hiring center. Otherwise, the ban on solicitation would likely be overturned as a violation of U.S. Constitutional protections on freedom of speech, which apply to anyone, not just citizens.

In the post-9/11 world, immigration has become a hot-button issue and many cities around Laguna Beach have abandoned their organized hiring sites after political lobbying efforts by anti-illegal immigration activists. But Laguna held strong in the belief that the hiring center created far more public benefit than if the city sought to be an immigration enforcer.

In fact, those South County cities that abolished their organized hiring sites now must cope with day labor-seekers on street corners and sidewalks.