As the bitter debate over the creation of a Herndon day-laborer center moved to Fairfax County Circuit Court last week, workers in Gaithersburg were renovating a former arcade on North Frederick Avenue, near the Route 355 overpass.
On a weed-infested spot in front of the building, David Rocha, pastor of Camino de Vida United Methodist Church, sees picnic tables. He also hopes to have a Latino artist paint a mural on an exterior wall.
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"This will be our palace," he said.
Starting this fall, Gaithersburg and Wheaton will be the sites of day laborer centers to help accommodate Montgomery County's burgeoning population of such workers, many of them illegal immigrants from Central and South America. Another operates in Silver Spring. (A temporary facility in Takoma Park is to move to Prince George's County in six months.)
The path Gaithersburg took to its day-laborer center started much like Herndon's. Some residents and merchants complained about men who used parking lots in the mornings as informal gathering spots to find work. Civic and religious leaders stepped in to develop alternatives.
But after that, the paths diverged. In Herndon, there were angry public meetings, accusations of racism and, now, a lawsuit: Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group, is trying to block the plan for a taxpayer-funded center, which the Town Council approved Aug. 17.
Gaithersburg's project, funded by Montgomery, was not without opposition. But compared with Herndon's, it breezed through the process. Elected officials and community leaders offer a range of reasons why, from politics to demographics to the influence of outside forces.
There has been a significant influx of immigrants in both towns. But the demographic changes have been felt more acutely in Herndon, a former farming community of four square miles. Thirty-eight percent of its 22,000 residents are foreign-born. Gaithersburg's population of 58,000 is 20 percent Latino.
"We have a very participatory town, and the fact that it's relatively small, people know and understand that they can and do make a difference in how we govern," Herndon Mayor Michael L. O'Reilly said. "Government bodies like the Montgomery County Council and Fairfax are bigger, and it's a lot more difficult to have an impact."
Others are more blunt. "I think it just underlines the fact here in Montgomery County . . . we do not encourage the hatemongering and xenophobia displayed in Virginia," State Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-Montgomery).
Still, when Montgomery decided to open its Silver Spring site 10 years ago, the protests were akin to Herndon's in size and anger. As the county has grown more diverse -- about 40 percent of its 930,000 residents are foreign-born -- residents have become more accustomed to immigrant-friendly policies.
County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) has allowed immigrants to use documents issued by foreign governments as proof of identity. He also maintains an Office of Community Outreach, organized by regions of the world. He traveled to El Salvador last month to meet with business and political leaders, including the country's president.
