"Since August 2004, and continuing into this past summer, the defendants have engaged in a campaign designed to drive out the Latino day laborers who gather on the streets of Mamaroneck to seek work," said federal Judge Colleen McMahon in her ruling. "The fact that the day laborers were Latinos, and not whites, was, at least in part, a motivating factor in defendants' actions."

The November 20 decision came after a discrimination lawsuit was filed last April on behalf of six day laborers and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, with the support of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, against the Village of Mamaroneck, its mayor, Phillip Trifiletti, and local chief of police Edward Flynn. The lawsuit requested an injunction against what the plaintiffs called selective law enforcement and discrimination.

"They were discriminating against us," Mario Martínez, 45, a resident of Mamaroneck who works as a painter, told the Militant today while waiting for work at a gas station on Mamaroneck Avenue. "They were trying to drive us out of here. We never did what they were accusing us of. We are here trying to get work."

Martínez was referring to a campaign led by the mayor and other town officials, allegedly in response to an upswing in complaints by residents that day laborers, who gathered for work at a site on Van Ranst Place along Columbus Park, downgraded their "quality of life." These residents supposedly complained that the workers engaged in "prostitution, drug dealing, public intoxication, child molestation, public exposures, and littering," and it felt unsafe to visit the park while the day laborers were there.

In August 2004 town officials closed down the site on Van Ranst Place. The workers were directed instead to a nearby parking lot. There they were under constant surveillance by the cops, who harassed contractors and others stopping by to pick up workers.

Cop harassment continued at the new site, until its use was prohibited too. In April, town officials posted signs at the parking lot and passed out flyers informing day laborers they could no longer wait for jobs there, forcing them onto nearby streets.

"Every day, the same racist cop on a bicycle used to come where we stand, and stare at us with his sunglasses on and tell us that we had to move," or face arrests and fines, said Martínez. "Sometimes he would place his hand on his gun."

The cops also set up checkpoints at either end of Mamaroneck Avenue to stop commercial vehicles and "inspect" them for no reason other than intimidating contractors.

"The cops came and gave fines for nothing," Luis Pérez, 24, another day laborer, told the Militant.

Several workers said cops on bicycles had still come by recently. A police car stopped while this reporter was interviewing a group of day laborers and told them they had to move because the gas station owner had supposedly complained. After moving to the sidewalk, workers said the owner had never objected to their presence there before and allowed them to use the bathroom and to come into the store to warm up and buy coffee.

Many of these workers said the victory in the lawsuit was an important step in their fight to defend their right to look for work, and in the broader efforts to push back attacks on immigrant workers.

"We are still here because we did something, and we were not intimidated," said Pérez. "If we had done nothing we would not be here."

"We now hope to be able to start a hiring hall," said Misael López, who has been coming here for work for the last three years. "It will be a little difficult because not everyone is going to accept that. There are some people who are racist, but there are others with more heart and solidarity."
 
 
Related article:
Anti-immigrant forces set back in New Jersey town  
 
 
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