CASA of Maryland worried Sensenbrenner bill will shut their day laborer centers

In case you had any doubts about HR 4437, this might slightly allay them:
Kim Propeack, spokeswoman for CASA of Maryland Inc., said her group's day-laborer centers "and other worker centers would in a large part be forced to shut down" if a bill offered by U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. becomes law...

..."The majority of workers that use CASA centers are documented, but we will not become a pawn in the government's failed immigration laws," Miss Propeack said...
I guess that means some of their workers are not "documented", so I guess they do have something to fear. Too, too bad.
Cecilia Munoz, vice president of policy for the National Council of La Raza, the country's largest Hispanic advocacy group, called the bill "shortsighted and harmful."

"The whole point of day-labor centers is to organize and make orderly a process which people in communities have complained about," she said.

"So by banning it effectively, the Sensenbrenner bill would really foster disorder in communities that have day laborers."
Oh, well. I guess other laws would then come into play. Alternatively, perhaps the illegal day laborers will head to more "liberal" cities or even decide that being an illegal alien here is not such a good thing.

Propeack was also mentioned in "Maryland to be sued over driver's licenses; AP not telling whole truth" and "Purging illegal aliens from voter rolls not easy".

Comments

These centers are also clear evidence that there is no labor shortage in the US.
First we have falling wages. If there was a labor shortage, wages would be going up.
Second, the employment rate for young non-college educated men - epecially black men - is the lowest it has been in decades. This says vastly more than the unemployment rate, which doesn't reflect those who have given up looking, who are underemployed, and who are working as "consultants" because they no longer have any choice or unemployment benefits.
Third, if we were truly in need of workers, men all over the country would not be congregating on street corners to sell their work by the day in a buyers' market. In fact, this is a throwback to the depression days.

It's not at all surprising that the practical reality of the way the day laborer scene works is not all that easy to make pretty or 'center-ize' -- after all, most of it is for sure, at least partly, technically illegal, even if illegals are not involved, and those who are involved in any case certainly don't want to showcase what's going on. The not easy to make pretty part is kinda like mass immigration itself -- I just cannot see how anyone who actually observes the total reality of it can do anything but oppose it. I cannot accept that 'The business of America is business' goes so far as to condone all of that.

Anyway, part of the reason for these centers is no doubt political -- just the first step toward accepting the presence of these "willing workers". And for that it probably works fine.

"So by banning it effectively, the Sensenbrenner bill would really foster disorder in communities that have day laborers."

The day laborer sites are not by and large solving the problem of disorder in the communities. From what I gather (1) many if not most of the laborers at the sites do not get jobs on any given day, (2) many laborers congregate on streets away from the sites just as they did before the sites were set up*, and (3) the people (employers) who pick these laborers up take them to work areas away from the site, meaning that the neighborhoods where these sites are located are suffering the disorder of the sites while the "benefits" are going to other areas where they have managed to keep the sites out.
* These sites away from the "official" sites appeal to employers who don't want to be seen or to fill out forms and to laborers who prefer less "structure" in who gets jobs. Apparently lotteries, lists, etc don't accomplish what "who gets to the cars first" does.

"failed immigration laws"

I guess they are "failed" because any and every Mexican who wants to cannot come to the US legally any time they feel like it. Yeah, things would be so much better here in what's left of America if we made the change Frau Propeack is probably suggesting here -- guest worker nirvana.

Of course what has "failed" is enforcement of existing law.

As if that needs to be said.

Which apparently it does.