Day laborers at the taxpayer-funded Herndon Official Workers Center said they would look for work in other places in the area if the center was closed.
“We would have to find work in other places, other corners,” said Daniel Pena, a Salvadoran immigrant who is not a U.S. citizen. “We’d have to find ways to earn the daily bread.”
The future of the center, opened in December 2005, was thrown into doubt by this week’s electionof new Herndon Town Council members opposed to the site. The new council members said they would increase monitoring once they take office in July to ensure that operating permit conditions are met.
Orlando Orellana, a U.S. citizen from El Salvador who operates a catering truck at the center, said he voted for Town Council candidates who supported keeping the site open.
At the center, “there is a special order” not found at disorganized day labor sites, he said.
Martine Rios, project manager at the center, said about 500 laborers have looked for work at the site since it opened, and that between 120 and 130 have been coming each morning in recent days. Opponents say these figures are inflated.
By 8:30 a.m. Thursday, there were 59 workers at the site. About 12 employers looking for workers had come to the center after it opened at 6 a.m.
Monitoring from a sidewalk about 75 yards away was Bill Campenni of the Minutemen, a group opposed to undocumented immigrants.
“As long as they’re breaking laws, we’re going to continue to monitor. We think our presence here has kept this in the spotlight,” he said.
Other Herndon residents said they were not sure how they felt about the center. Robert Grolemund, who was getting coffee at a shop about half a mile from the center, said he supported the site but was unsure how it affected the community economically.
“I see a bunch of people who are trying to do an honest day’s work. I look at it as people trying to do their best,” Grolemund said.
Other views on Herndon Official Workers Center
“When it comes to us [U.S. citizens], they’re strict. When it comes to them [day laborers], no comprende.”
» Michael Oberzat, a Maryland resident who operates lunch trucks in Herndon
“Sometimes we see the same folks for days and then we never see them again because the employers take him. He likes our workers and that’s OK with us.”
» Martine Rios, project manager at the center
