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L.A. conference considers plight of day laborers
Los Angeles Times ^ | February 21, 2012 | Paloma Esquivel

Posted on 02/21/2012 7:25:38 PM PST by moonshinner_09

The way Omar Sierra remembers it, dozens of day laborers gathered in the Kmart parking lot that day more than 15 years ago. A county mobile health clinic arrived with a mariachi band and free food and offered HIV tests to those waiting for work.

Sierra got in line and sat for his test. He heard a commotion, turned and saw men running. He thought someone was offering a job and wondered whether he should go with them. Then he saw the immigration agents. And he ran as fast as he could.

More than a dozen day laborers were arrested and deported that day in February 1996 in the City of Industry. Those who weren't, including Sierra, returned to the lot the next day to look for work. This time, they were greeted by an organizer who wanted to enlist workers to fight back.

Sierra, who now lives in Texas, and hundreds of current and former day laborers from across the country gather this week in Los Angeles for a national conference to measure their progress since day laborers began a concerted effort to organize themselves two decades ago.

They will discuss wage theft and worker safety, and they will reflect on the role that day laborers, often seen as little more than loosely banded groups of men looking for a day's work, have had in challenging local anti-solicitation ordinances, state anti-illegal immigration laws and federal enforcement.

The conference comes as the national immigration and labor debate has become polarized, with tough crackdowns in Arizona, Alabama and other states, and heated rhetoric in the Republican presidential primary campaign. And in ways that activists couldn't have imagined when they began organizing street corners, the day laborers who gathered this week are prepared to fight back on a national scale.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: aliens; ca; daylaborers; immigration
So much for illegals are in the shadows, now they are out in the open and making demands for America to accommodate them as well as carter to their every whim, with little to fear, from ICE..
1 posted on 02/21/2012 7:25:47 PM PST by moonshinner_09
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To: moonshinner_09

Plight? Huh? Remember when we had a president who actively drove them back down to Mexico? Anyone remember his name? Hint: He was a general of the army (5 star) before he won the presidency.


2 posted on 02/21/2012 7:28:16 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (You can't invade the US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.~Admiral Yamamoto)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Dwight D. Eisenhower


3 posted on 02/21/2012 7:29:52 PM PST by SatinDoll (NO FOREIGN NATIONALS AS OUR U.S.A. PRESIDENT)
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To: moonshinner_09

suggested BUST locations:

1. Home Depot

2. Lowe’s

3. Nearby any major paint store

4. Big city E.R.’s

5. Bus stops

6. ANY welfare office in the southwest, and ANYWHERE in California —95% Mexican, or MORE


4 posted on 02/21/2012 7:31:26 PM PST by gaijin
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To: moonshinner_09

I suppose that the idea of offering them a job, loading them on a bus, and driving them back to Mexico would be racist


5 posted on 02/21/2012 7:33:07 PM PST by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
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To: moonshinner_09

How did he get his legal status “Adjusted”?


6 posted on 02/21/2012 7:34:54 PM PST by Forrestfire (("To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." Theodore Roosevelt))
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To: All


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7 posted on 02/21/2012 8:05:37 PM PST by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Ike, and his program was called Operation Wetback, the mere mention of which will make current GOP elites pee down their legs in fear that it will alienate the ‘latino vote’ that they have been whoring after.


8 posted on 02/21/2012 8:14:05 PM PST by Pelham (Vultures for Romney. We pluck your carcass)
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To: moonshinner_09

The single best thing the USA could do to help third world nations, is to deport all those hard working illegal aliens searching for a better life, back to their countries of origin.

Perhaps they would then make a real effort to band together and fight for the human rights they claim are due them, in their own nations, instead of working hard to spread crime and corruption here.
Or not.
No matter, we can still force them help themselves, by deporting them, and jailing those who prey upon them here.

We already have the laws, why not enforce them?


9 posted on 02/21/2012 8:24:07 PM PST by sarasmom ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xZsFe6dM3EY)
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To: KosmicKitty
I suppose that the idea of offering them a job, loading them on a bus, and driving them back to Mexico would be racist

It probably would be construed as such, but it would also alleviate their "plight". Boo hoo.

10 posted on 02/21/2012 8:29:08 PM PST by Fast Moving Angel (Newt's not a perfect candidate but Jesus isn't running this year. - shoff)
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To: gaijin

“suggested BUST locations:

1. Home Depot

2. Lowe’s

3. Nearby any major paint store”
****

Where I drive on Sunset Blvd, there’s a Home Depot full of illegals’ and an OSH (with no illegals). This has been going on for more than 5 years and both stores are right across each other.


11 posted on 02/21/2012 9:42:08 PM PST by max americana (Buttcrack Obama is an idiot)
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To: gaijin
7. Your local County Health Dept. getting FREE well-baby visits; FREE immunizations and FREE everything else (I say FREE because to them it is, to us - we pay!)

8. Your local DMV, in line for getting driver's tests (in Spanish); also registering to vote (to raise your taxes.)

Just to name a few more.

12 posted on 02/21/2012 10:32:36 PM PST by zerosix (native sunflower)
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