Day-Labor Issue Has Cooled, but Only to Simmer
Rifts Could Shape Elections Tuesday

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 4, 2008

Ky Truong looked out the window of the Herndon Shell station he manages at what he calls "a lot of problems": clusters of immigrant day laborers, who he says have been trampling his flower beds and bothering customers since September, when the town shuttered its controversial day-laborer hiring center. Truong wants it reopened.

But on the eve of Tuesday's municipal elections, the chance of that happening looks close to nil. Asked at a recent political forum if they would consider reopening the site if Fairfax County provided funding, 12 of 13 candidates for Town Council said no. The other said "absolutely not."

Two years ago, Herndon's taxpayer-subsidized day-laborer center was a flash point in a national debate over immigration, and most of the current council and mayor were elected on a wave of voter opposition to the site. Now candidates are talking as much about downtown revitalization and neighborhood upkeep as about day laborers.

But day labor remains a divisive force that could influence the election. Council members who opposed the center boast of fulfilled promises and have raised doubts about challengers' pledges not to reopen it. Challengers talk of "reuniting" the town. Letters to local newspapers and online postings are consumed with the topic. If anything, some observers say, the issue has receded only because three years of debate has drawn deep, indelible battle lines.

"Everybody's got their position," said Bob Rudine, an activist who pushed to have the center closed. "And no amount of discussion will change that."

Day laborers in search of work have resumed congregating at the intersection of Alabama Drive and Elden Street. But even that fact fuels disagreement in Herndon, a town of 23,000, about 40 percent of whom are immigrants.

More than 100 workers sought jobs each day at the defunct center, a place critics said abetted illegal immigration because operators did not verify whether laborers were legal residents. Local and national surveys have found that most day laborers lack work documents.

Anti-illegal immigration activists say they count about 15 to 30 day laborers each day on the streets of central Herndon -- about as many there, they say, as when the job center was open. They say that shows the center's closure has helped drive away day laborers.

"The larger issue before was listening and having elected officials that were in touch with the voters . . . and day labor was indicative of that," said Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedittis, who unseated his predecessor in 2006. "Somebody said to me the other day, 'You've got my vote because you closed the center.' "

Others say the workers are fewer but still abundant. Bill Threlkeld, director of the nonprofit group that ran the hiring center, said weekly counts in the first three months of the year found between 53 and 75 workers on weekdays. Truong and Alex Canary, manager of Herndon Auto Care, next door to the Shell, said the number and nuisance of day laborers ballooned after the center closed. Critics of the council say that whatever the figure, market forces are most responsible.

"The main reason there are less is just because the job opportunities are less," said council candidate Richard F. Downer, who served on the council from 1971 to 1974 and 1990 to 2000.

When the council closed the center, it determined, based on a recent court ruling on the town's anti-solicitation ordinance, that laborers had a right to solicit jobs on public property. The center's regulars chose a park-side path two blocks from Alabama and Elden for an informal site and called themselves the United Day Laborers of Herndon. Their unity soon collapsed because of lack of leadership and discontent with the site, which is farther from traffic. Many drifted back to the intersection.

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.