Decoupling Day Labor from the Immigration Issue

Over the past few weeks the US Border Patrol and Riverside County California police have been the target of allegations that they engaged in racial profiling and set a quota for immigration arrests. Among other places, law enforcement officers swept an informal day labor site, making several arrests. These actions, and many of the news stories reporting them, help reinforce the stereotype that day laborer is an immigration issue, and nothing more.

To call it a stereotype is of course to suggest that it is not completely true. There's no denying that many day laborers lack documentation to remain in the US legally. But a comprehensive survey of thousands of day laborers across the US revealed that fully 1/4 of them are legal residents. Day labor is not just about immigration policy, it also about labor, land use, and simple economics.

The economic downturn has hit Riverside and the Inland Empire where it is situated especially hard. Thrown out of regular jobs, people are hitting the streets to look for work. The practice of using public space as markets, whether for food or labor, is an ancient one, and for good reason. By eliminating the middle man, street side day labor markets bring home owner/employers and day laborer/employees together at minimal cost. It's a win-win for work. Some might even call it the American Way, if they didn't realize that people have been doing this for thousands of years.

Sealing off the border and sending the undocumented back home won't get rid of day labor. There are too many new homeowners looking for help fixing up houses snapped up through foreclosure, picked clean of copper plumbing, appliances, and anything else that wasn't nailed down. For every desperate seller there is a happy buyer who needs day labor to help out. They know where to find them-- at the local, informal street corner day labor market.

I elaborate on this argument in a paper, "Day Labor Markets and Public Space." It's posted on SSRN, at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1332832.