An agreement was reached yesterday that will allow day laborers to congregate at a Woodbridge 7-Eleven with some restrictions, and prosecutors said they will drop loitering charges against 11 workers if there are no incidents in the next month.
Workers will be allowed to stand on one side of the convenience store in the morning and enter the parking lot when contractors arrive. If the new system works without complaints, the police department will not conduct sweeps there. Police also would like the crowd to disperse at a time yet to be determined.
Several workers who awaited construction jobs at a Woodbridge 7-Eleven were arrested in the fall. The workers and the store have negotiated a deal that lets them remain under restrictions.
(James A. Parcell -- The Washington Post)
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The agreement between store officials and the day laborers prompted Prince William County prosecutors to conditionally drop the misdemeanor charges against the workers. Some people reacted angrily after the brief hearing in General District Court.
"I'm outraged," said April Gallop, 33, of Woodbridge. "The issue at the time was that they were loitering, and they were guilty. They can go to the unemployment office like everybody else."
Jim McDonald, who organizes demonstrations for the Virginia Coalition Against Terrorism, stood in front of the courthouse with a sign thanking police for the arrests and telling illegal immigrants and the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped represent the laborers in court, to "please go home."
Luis Urias, one of the laborers, said the sign upset him. "That's ridiculous," said Urias, 38, who moved to the United States from El Salvador in 1984. "All we want to do is make a decent living."
Diane Hume, 7-Eleven's loss prevention specialist for Northern Virginia, said the chain wanted to reach a compromise with the laborers, who began congregating in the lot more than a year ago. The store, in the 13000 block of Route 1, is close to a neighborhood where many laborers live and is a favorite spot for contractors seeking a cup of coffee.
But the convenience store's transformation into a staging area for recruitment has drawn numerous complaints from customers and passersby. The accusations ranged from littering to harassment of store's female customers.
The issue has divided the fast-growing county, where Latinos now make up 16 percent of the population, up from 9 percent in 2000. Supporters of the Hispanic laborers said the complaints -- and the resulting police action -- were knee-jerk responses to changing demographics.
Those making complaints argued that the men were loitering. Residents and members of an anti-immigration group came out in force in November for a town meeting organized by Supervisor Hilda M. Barg (D-Woodbridge). Barg also has assembled a task force that is looking for a permanent site for laborers to gather each morning.
Sean T. Connaughton (R), chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, said that if a permanent site is built, it should be paid for by contractors, who would benefit from it.
Until the task force can come up with a permanent solution, 7-Eleven is being a good neighbor, said Tim Freilich, attorney for the Virginia Justice Center for Farm and Immigrant Workers in Falls Church.
In turn, the workers must be more organized and respectful of customers, Hume said. They often approach every truck that pulls into the lot, believing that the driver is a contractor. An unknowing customer can be frightened by a swarm of workers, Hume said. "It can be intimidating," she said.
John Zwerling, the laborers' attorney, said he and others accomplished the bigger goal of creating a more cooperative environment for the laborers. "Our primary concern was not to win the case today as much as it was to ensure that they will not be arrested tomorrow," he said.
Zwerling did not represent all the laborers who were arrested in the fall. One worker struck a similar deal Nov. 29, and federal immigration authorities are detaining at least seven workers, said Ricardo Juarez, a coordinator with the Workers Committee of Woodbridge. Other workers have not appeared in court because they were transient and could not be contacted, Juarez said.
