A Fairfax County Circuit Court judge has struck down a Herndon law forbidding employers to solicit day laborers anywhere but at a single center, a new turn in an already complex tangle of immigration, labor and law in the small Virginia town.
Judge Leslie M. Alden overturned a district court ruling and declared the ordinance unconstitutional, the town announced Wednesday evening. A previous Town Council enacted the law and established the controversial day labor center in 2005, with the goal of preventing laborers from gathering at informal sites where officials argued they were a health risk and a nuisance.
The anti-solicitation ordinance was first challenged in 2006 by Stephen Thomas of Reston, who Herndon police arrested for hiring a worker outside a 7-Eleven on Elden Street. A district judge upheld the measure in March, based largely on the existence of the day labor center, which gave employers an laborers a place to meet. Thomas appealed soon
after.
That initial ruling is why the new Herndon Town Council, much of which was elected last year on the promise of opposing the center, was not able to completely dismantle it. Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedittis, in a statement Wednesday, said the town “is reviewing its legal options.”
“The Herndon Town Council continues in its commitment to do whatever is necessary to avoid a return to informal day labor sites on our streets and throughout our town,” he said.
The ruling represents a setback for those hoping to push illegal aliens out of Herndon by ending day labor opportunities, and a boon to day-laborer rights supporters.
“This is huge, this is another big victory,” said John Steinbach, community outreach coordinator for the Woodbridge Workers Committee. “This is right up there with Hazleton,” he added, referring to a recent federal court ruling that struck down a Pennsylvania town’s attempt to punish employers and landlords who give work or housing to illegal immigrants.
The decision comes as the Herndon council prepares to overhaul the day labor center by putting in place a new operator who will check immigration status. Town staff is now reviewing a single bid to take over the job from Reston Interfaith, which plans to end its contract next month.
