Marley Pulido, a commumity organizer at the Labor Resource Center, speaks to day laborers in Centreville, Va. Pulido was trying to convince the men to come to the center to stay warm and have a better chance of finding work.
The Labor Resource Center in Centreville is busy most mornings with Latino immigrants checking the Internet, waiting for English lessons and, mostly, hoping for a daily work assignment that will offer them a chance to send money back home.
But the sidewalk of a nearby intersection outside the public library is more crowded, with dozens of mostly Guatemalan men watching for anyone with a job offer.
“It’s a challenge, and nobody has found a real answer,” Fairfax County Supervisor Michael Frey (R-Sully) said of the clusters of day laborers whose presence irritates some residents of the surrounding neighborhood. “Like it or not, they’re people and you can’t stop them from gathering there.”
Frey helped launch the nonprofit Labor Resource Center in 2011 to pull day laborers away from the street corner, in response to complaints about their presence and concerns from advocacy groups about the immigrants’ well-being.
The center offers a beacon of stability for the workers, many of whom are in this country illegally. But to the dismay of some residents, it has not halted the practice of workers gathering a few hundred yards away outside the library, where some believe the job opportunities are more plentiful. And with Frey stepping down in December after 24 years on the county board, the Republicans vying to replace him say the situation could become an issue in the race.
“My understanding is the center is working and that’s a good thing,” said John Guevara, one of two Republicans vying to replace Frey. “But at the same time, it does pose an issue, because the real concern is what we are doing in terms of being a magnet for illegal immigration.”
The other Republican, Brian Schoeneman, said he has no position on the center but has heard from voters who are unhappy about the day laborers. “I suspect it will be an issue,” Schoeneman said.
Once rural and sleepy, Centreville has drawn immigrant laborers since the 1990s, when the area began sprouting the residential developments, shopping centers and office buildings that dominate today.
Many workers came from a rural part of Guatemala known as Nebaj Quiche, after someone from that area who was finding work in Northern Virginia sent word back about the jobs. “We started arriving, friend by friend, family by family,” said Pedro Brito, who has been in Centreville about seven years.
Today, most of the day laborers in Centreville are from that rainy and rocky region of Guatemala. The newcomers — many of whom settled in a complex of duplex homes called the Meadows — eventually transformed the library corner at St. Germain Drive and Machen Road into a hiring site. Soon, a crowd of laborers shouted for attention whenever a contractor drove up.
Complaints led to town meetings — some of them heated — and, eventually, the creation of the Centreville Immigration Forum out of a local church. In 2011, the group launched the resource center in a rear portion of the Centreville Square Shopping Center, about a quarter-mile from the library corner.
The center sits near a Korean grocery store, a Vietnamese restaurant and other businesses that reflect Centreville’s increasing diversity, operating in donated space and funded by private donations and grants.
Its small staff tries to lure the men from the corner by offering classes, protection against wage theft, health services and, most of all, a warm and safe place to wait for work. After a recent fatal stabbingat the Meadows that started with a drunken fight between two workers, the center is planning to launch therapy groups to deal with the alcohol abuse and depression that plagues some of the men.
On a recent morning, Molly Maddra-Santiago — the center’s director — took in job offers by phone, negotiating the terms for her clients. “You’ll need someone with a little bit of English so he can delegate, right?” she said to one caller. She then consulted a list of names and made the job connection.
Julia Gilbert, 59, who lives in nearby Manassas, has been back to hire four times, mostly for moving jobs. She said she likes the security of hiring someone who has been vetted by the nonprofit group.
“Every time, they have worked their butts off,” said Gilbert, describing one job where a worker repaired a broken desk leg without asking for extra cash. At the same time, “if something happens,” the center staff “know who the people are.”
Many workers at the center say they have no desire to permanently stay in the United States. They want to earn enough to guarantee security back home for themselves and the families they left behind. The center, decorated with maps and pictures painted by the workers, offers an opportunity for workers to air their sorrow over that separation.
“My youngest daughter was 4 when I left,” Diego Lopez, 39, said tearfully one recent morning, recalling his departure from Guatemala in 2004. He wants to return to Nebaj Quiche as soon as he has saved enough to buy land for a new home there.
The drive to earn money pushes other men to the library corner, where they believe it is easier to be spotted by passing contractors. “I’d rather stay here,” said Pedro Cedillo, wrapped in multiple hooded sweatshirts outside the library one morning last week. “Going to the center could cost me.”
The workers’ continued presence on the corner irritates Laura Bentzen, who lives nearby and argued against accommodating the day laborers before the center was created. “Why aren’t they in the center?” Bentzen said last week. “That was the premise — that they’d be off the street. But it doesn’t look like that’s happened.”
Robert Bear, who lives across from the library, said he resents having to see the laborers waiting on the corner. “Even though we have ‘no trespassing’ signs, they cut through here all the time.”
Frey said he believes the situation is better than it used to be and notes that the men are not violating any local statutes by being on the corner. In the absence of federal immigration reforms that would allow undocumented immigrants to qualify for work permits, he added, a more complete solution has been hard to find
“Until you fix the immigration system, it’s probably going to continue to exist,” he said.
Over the years, some of the workers have put down roots in Centreville. Andres Terraza was among those waiting outside the libary for jobs when he arrived in 2002. Now, he has steady work in construction and doesn’t need to frequent the street corner.
His time here, and his 6-year-old son Alex, who was born in the United States, qualify him for temporary protected status under the executive order that President Obama announced last fall.
As he took a break from renovating his newly rented apartment inside the Meadows, Terraza said he is hopeful about his future. “I already put in my application” for protected status, Terraza said, smiling, before calling to his son to play closer to home.
Antonio.olivo@washpost.com
