Sometimes, A Labor Day

A Trailer in Gaithersburg Is a Haven For Immigrants Hoping for a Better Life

Five-thirty a.m. A damp chill in the air. Figures hunched on the pavement outside a locked trailer, hoods up, waiting. A man approaches on a bicycle, nearly invisible in the dark. "Hola, 'mano."

Headlights pass. Faces turn sharply, then relax.

Finally, the car they've been waiting for. It's Fernando Garavito, the manager, with the key. The men scramble up the steps and crowd inside. The trailer is flooded with warm light. Someone turns on the coffee pot, the weather report. Someone passes around a sign-up sheet with two numbered lists: "Labor" and "Skilled."

Comfort in routine, and sanctuary from much more than the pre-dawn chill.

This has been a tense summer for the men who arrive each morning at the Center for Employment and Training in Gaithersburg, operated by the nonprofit CASA de Maryland. Many have no legal documents. They have anxiously followed the news of Virginia communities passing laws against illegal immigrants, of stepped-up factory raids and deportations. And they hear the angry voices.

"A guy hired me the other day to do some painting. I got in his van and right away he turned on the radio. It was one of those stations that is full of hateful talk against immigrants. I just sat in the back and said nothing, but it made me feel like a Jew in Nazi Germany."

The speaker, a young Salvadoran named Angel, gives a brief, bitter smile.

The others nod and guffaw, glance up from scanning "Deportes" or "Clasificados" in the weekly Spanish-language newspapers.

"Americans complain that we don't learn English, but I'm glad a lot of my friends don't know the language," Angel says. "If they could hear what the media say about us, it would hurt their hearts."

Before the trailer opened in April, the men spent their days in a game of cat-and-mouse. First, they gathered outside a 7-Eleven until a nearby shop owner complained and the police shooed them away. Then they moved to an alley behind an auto repair garage, until someone poured used engine oil along the curbs where they sat.

Now, they feel relatively safe. The trailer is legal, private and virtually hidden from public view. It is wedged between a gravel pit and a cargo truck lot on a county service road, with barely enough room for a bicycle rack and two picnic tables outside.

But for some local opponents, the site is still not far enough away. On the day the trailer was inaugurated, someone came early in the morning, poured flammable liquid on the porch and set it on fire.