Posted on 08/17/2005 4:12:00 AM PDT by chambley1
Concerns about property values, illegal immigration and human rights collided last night in Herndon as passionate advocates for and against a tax-supported site for day laborers lined up in an effort to sway the Town Council.
Nearly 150 people who had signed up to speak crowded into the town's small municipal building for the fourth night of public hearings this summer, as the council considered how to resolve problems created by scores of immigrants congregating outside a 7-Eleven to seek construction work.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The number of speakers, each allotted three minutes, prompted the council to postpone a vote on the issue, which has overwhelmed the town with publicity.
As people waited to take their seats in the cramped council chambers, zoning officials covered the often-dry details of the proposal from a local social service agency to set up an organized gathering spot for day laborers that would replace the current unofficial site.
But outside the chambers, the battle lines were evident between advocates and opponents of a publicly funded site. Supporters stood on one side of the street, carrying signs that read "Ignorance Breeds Fear," referring to anti-immigrant sentiment. A crowd gathered on the other side wearing, on their shirts, white paper stars with a slash through the phrase "Day Labor Site." One sign stated: "Start a Revolution and Hire an American."
Inside, the speakers' concerns ranged from human rights to property rights and whether the mission of local government should include enforcement of what many called the failure of federal authorities to police the country's borders...............
.....The town appears evenly split between those who say a publicly supported center would be tantamount to endorsing illegal immigration and those who simply want officials to deal with the situation at the 7-Eleven, which they see as a nuisance.***
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See. When people show up and participate in their government the Town Council takes note.
The planning committee already voted against this land use.
Mark Williams, a guest host on WMAL-AM, exhorted his audience last week to line up at Tuesday's Town Council meeting, "whether you're from Herndon or Timbuktu," to protest plans to use public money to create a new gathering site for the job seekers, many of them undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
Council members "have absolutely no intention of following the law," Williams boomed on "The Michael Graham Show" on Monday, broadcasting 3,000 miles away from WFBK in Sacramento. "The issue you're trying to solve," he told listeners, "is the fact that the United States has borders, and its citizens demand that they be enforced."
That was not the kind of attention Herndon leaders and residents anticipated when they began debating how to use local zoning and nuisance laws to deal with growing anger at the large groups of often noisy and disruptive men who congregate in parking lots and on sidewalks seeking work every morning...........***
Add in public urination and that sounds like a lot of street corners here in L.A.
The solution is to use the new eminent domain power and condemn 1,000 homes and give them to each illegal for the "public interest." That way the illegals can sit on the couch and make phone calls looking for a job rather than standing around corners.
This is already conceding too much.
It is the PUBLIC LAW OF THE UNITED STATES, passed by the People, through their representatives, that is "anti-immigration".
Supporting acts of the People in Congress assembled is not anti-anything.
This is already conceding too much.
It is the PUBLIC LAW OF THE UNITED STATES, passed by the People, through their representatives, that is "anti-immigration".
Supporting acts of the People in Congress assembled is not anti-anything.
On any given day, between 20 to 30 workers will find jobs at the Shirlington site, not quite half of those who show up. Tobar said employers are encouraged to pay a fair wage, from $10 to $15 an hour depending on the work, maybe more for job requiring especially heavy labor.
Day laborers register at the site and are entered into a lottery system that gives all laborers an equal chance to be hired for unskilled work. Those with specific skills, like carpentry, can be matched up with employers seeking skilled labor.
Day laborers are not asked about their immigration status; Tobar acknowledged that most are not legal, but he said many are working through the immigration bureaucracy to obtain legal status, a process that can take years.
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0805/252343.html
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