Replenishing Their Spirits

David Reyes came in the early chill yesterday to look for work at Herndon's day-laborer center, an almost daily routine for the 35-year-old immigrant from El Salvador. Instead of a Christmas Eve job, he found an unexpected holiday dinner.

With several dozen other men who waited for the possibility of an afternoon gig, he munched on richly seasoned chicken and vegetables, salad and cake provided by a group of Muslim activists who wanted to support Northern Virginia's less fortunate.

Yesterday, the Northern Virginia Muslim Council focused on the town's largely Hispanic day laborers, who have been at the center of so much political passion in recent months.

"It's nice to see that someone cares, that we're supported when we look for work," Reyes said through an interpreter as he sipped on eggnog and sat with a small group of men who laughed and joked as they ate. He said he was aware of the heated rhetoric that has accompanied the day laborers in the town. "We just come to work, to make a living," he said, "and sometimes it feels like we are not wanted."

The early dinner, complete with handshakes and hugs among volunteers and workers, helped bring to a close a year of tensions over the trailer and the green-and-white tent known as the Herndon Official Workers Center.

In August 2005, after weeks of bitter community debate, the Town Council voted to open a publicly funded center to help a burgeoning population of immigrant day laborers find work.

About nine months later, town voters unseated Mayor Michael O'Reilly and two council members who had supported establishing the center. They were replaced by critics of the center who want to ensure that it does not cater to illegal immigrants.

Now led by Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedittis, the council is searching for an operator for the center that will require workers to show legal documentation. This year, town officials considered applying for a federal program that would train some police officers to enforce U.S. immigration law, including the initiation of deportation proceedings.

Organizers of yesterday's dinner had two goals: to show solidarity with the laborers and spread holiday cheer to those in need.

"These are people who are trying to put food on the table," said Mukit Hossain, who also founded Project Hope and Harmony, which runs the hiring center and which the council wants to replace.

"There has been quite a brouhaha over these men, but at the end of the day, we have a moral obligation to reach out and support them," Hossain said.

Several employees of the center, on the Fairfax-Loudoun county border, said the dinner had special resonance for many workers who were far from home.

It was "very important to them because many don't have family here," said Gloria Luna, a coordinator at the center. "Many of them are alone in this country."

Several workers said they were pleased by the home-cooked meal.

"We know that there are some people who don't want us here, but things like this make us feel more at home," said Olvin Mejia, 25, who lives in Herndon. With that, he plopped a last square of white cake in his mouth and smiled.