Workers battle with signs

Some day laborers have taken to holding “Hire here” signs and staying still on sidewalks where they congregate in Costa Mesa, a direct response to a police crackdown last year in which more than a half-dozen laborers were arrested for allegedly violating the city’s anti-solicitation law.

Under the ordinance, nobody may solicit oncoming motorists by distracting them through waving or calling out to them. Conversely, motorists are not allowed to solicit work from the day laborers by searching them out, but that hasn’t stopped either of the groups from finding work or getting work, even if it is in violation of the anti-solicitation ordinance.

“We figure, if we hold out signs and obey the law, as it is written, then there’s not much the police can do,” said Antonio Gonzalez, a Spanish-speaking day laborer who lives on the west side of Costa Mesa. “I don’t want any trouble. I just need work, and if this sign helps me find it, then that will be a good thing.

“What some people don’t understand is that we just want to work. We don’t want to cause any trouble.”

Less than two weeks ago, a pair of civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Costa Mesa, challenging the anti-solicitation ordinance as unconstitutional and in direct violation of the day laborers’ right to free speech.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California contend that there is no real difference between the people who twirl signs advertising local businesses and the day laborers who congregate in certain pockets of the city and yell out for work — or hold their hands up to passing motorists.

In September, a dozen day laborers were arrested by undercover Costa Mesa police officers for allegedly violating the ordinance. All of them were in the country illegally and were eventually deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Police Chief Christopher Shawkey said the crackdown came after police fielded more than 100 complaints by nearby business owners along Harbor and Newport boulevards, the two thoroughfares where the workers tend to congregate.

Shawkey said he has no problem with the presence of the day laborers, as long as they obey the ordinance and do not, as he put it, “step into the roadway or aggressively solicit” jobs.

Whether the city will amend the ordinance or put up a fight in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana is unclear. City Atty. Kimberly Hall Barlow could not be reached for comment Monday.

Mayor Allan Mansoor has spoken out against the day laborers who are in the country illegally, saying he didn’t think it was city government’s role to be responsible for providing them with a day labor center, a permanent place where they can look for jobs.

Costa Mesa’s day labor center was shut down in 2006.

While the ACLU and MALDEF feel that the police raid was an immigration sweep in disguise, the day laborers said they aren’t sure what to expect next. As they stood beside the sign Monday morning on Newport Boulevard, they said they hoped that the cardboard sign would preclude police from arresting them.

“We just figure if the other businesses can hire people to hold up signs, then we should be able to do the same thing,” Costa Mesa resident Jose Ramirez-Morales said in Spanish. “But times are tough anyway. There are no jobs these days.”