Day-Labor Issue Has Cooled, but Only to Simmer

On a recent weekday at 9:30 a.m., about 10 men waited by the park. About 40 more stood near the corner. In interviews, they said the number often swelled to about 70 on Saturdays. Several said lack of work was the reason many of their peers had left. The hiring center, with its coffee, roof, job distribution system and English classes, provided more jobs, they said.

"We had everything there," said Geovani Sabillon, 27, a Honduran who stood on the sidewalk outside the Shell and said he has gotten one day of work in three weeks.

But in a sign of the cooler campaign climate, none of the workers knew there was a coming election in which they were playing a part, albeit a smaller one than in 2006.

DeBenedittis is running against businessman Jasbinder Singh, who said he would consider a hiring site funded by workers and employers because most voters he has talked to are unhappy about laborers on the streets. The third mayoral candidate, council member J. Harlon Reece, voted to approve the center in 2005 and says he would focus on repairing rifts by forming a "working group" of residents to hash out solutions.

"It may not seem we're divided. But if we talk about it, it seems like people have drawn a line in the sand," Reece said. He added: "If I'm running as a candidate that's going to try to reunite this community, starting Day One talking about opening a day-worker center would just reignite that issue."

Ten candidates are running for six council seats, including four elected in 2006 and one incumbent. At the recent forum, incumbents pointed to what they said was success in tackling illegal immigration. They cited the town's participation in a federal program that allows police to enforce some immigration laws, through which police have initiated the deportations of 58 illegal immigrants. They noted a drop in open residential overcrowding cases and vowed to continue citing businesses that allow soliciting on their property; six fines have been issued, town officials said.

"They are at least keeping the issue alive," said Aubrey Stokes, president of anti-illegal immigration group Help Save Herndon. "There's that old saying, 'Lest we forget.' "

At the forum, challengers made no overt calls for changes to the town's illegal-immigration approach. Asked in a question-and-answer session how they would decrease "polarization" over the topic, they talked about listening to the public and offering solutions.

"While people are not happy about the guys back on the street, they are, I think, as unhappy about the rhetoric," said former council member Carol A. Bruce, who voted for the hiring site and was ousted in 2006. "So [challengers] have tried very hard . . . not to make the election a referendum on the day-labor center."

Lisa Merkel, for one, hopes it won't be. A stay-at-home mother who lives near Alabama and Elden, she said that she understood why some disliked using tax dollars for a hiring site but that she disliked more seeing workers on the streets. Mostly, she said, she is tired of arguments over the topic -- a position that she said has led some to accuse her of wanting to "sweep it under the rug."

"We've already done all that. The day-labor site is closed. I just don't think anybody is going to touch that issue for a while," said Merkel, 35, who is supporting Reece and frequently posts to an online town politics forum. "Herndon's just a nice place to live. And I wish that's what people knew about instead of all this immigration stuff."

Back at the corner, Daniel Peña waited in paint-spotted clothes for work. He said he felt happy in Herndon after nearly two years there. But he harbored little hope for a hiring center: "With the situation now, I don't think so."

Inside the Shell, Truong, 59, fumed. The station has been fined three times -- $1,200 total -- for "allowing" workers to solicit jobs on its property, an accusation Truong said is unfair because he does his best to shoo them away. He said town officials suggested he hire a security guard like the 7-Eleven next door.

"Maybe they can afford it. Not us," he said. "Even I don't make $10 an hour!"

A block up Alabama, Rudine, the activist who fought the center, tended to his pink azaleas. He sees improvements in town, he said -- day-laborer crowds are dwindling, and immigrants are no longer drinking in the schoolyard behind his house -- and he thinks most residents feel the same.

"I guess we'll see how deep the divisions are on Tuesday," he said.