Edition of Dec. 14, 2007

'Saving' Herndon
By Rebecca Plevin Observer Staff Writer
In the summer of 2005, Herndon resident Butch Baughan organized a series of town meetings to discuss a proposed hiring site for day laborers in Herndon. Baughan opposed the Town Council's plan to create a workers' center in town and suspected that others did, too.
Resident Phil Jones attended those meetings. He had been growing frustrated by the presence of illegal immigrants at the 7-Eleven, who he said swarmed his car and made rude gestures toward his teenage daughter.
Jones said he was concerned for the safety of his children and for the deteriorating quality of life in Herndon. "There was something wrong, like a cancer there," he said.
The final straw for Jones was the proposed hiring center, which he opposed because it was funded by taxpayer dollars, he said.
Resident Aubrey Stokes, who was also present at those meetings, said he was concerned the council was moving forward with plans for the day labor site, "trying to railroad a solution that wasn't a solution at all."
The three men met at those meetings and joined forces to form Help Save Herndon, a group designed to help residents organize against the proposed day labor site and inform the community about the effects of illegal immigration.
Just two years after its founding, Help Save Herndon has expanded into a regional organization dedicated to helping citizens oppose illegal immigration and has received national attention. Its growth has not been without controversy, but what began as a small group of concerned residents has become Help Save Virginia, an umbrella group of about 2,500 people that also includes chapters in Loudoun, Manassas, Hampton Roads and Fairfax, according to Jones. The Herndon group has about 150 active members, he said.
There is also Help Save Maryland with chapters in six counties and there are people interested in forming Help Save organizations in Alabama and Arizona, Jones said. He said the group is not anti-immigrant, racist or xenophobic. "We are pro-community and pro-family," he said.
"We think this small town will probably be remembered as the forefront for immigration reform," Jones said.
'Got To Do Something'
Help Save Herndon traces its roots back to the informal hiring site at the 7-Eleven at the corner of Elden Street and Alabama Drive, where dozens of day laborers gathered in search of work.
"Everybody in town said, 'You got to do something,'" said former Herndon mayor Michael O'Reilly. "What we tried to do was solve what was really a problem at the 7-Eleven parking lot, where people were rushing cars and citizens had complained for years."
O'Reilly said the former Town Council met with local and national organizations to discuss solutions to the 7-Eleven situation. He spoke with Fairfax County officials, who explained that the only legitimate way to move a large number of people from the 7-Eleven, without harassing them or violating their constitutional rights, would be to establish a regulated hiring site that would serve anyone who wanted to go there, he said.
The nonprofit organization Project Hope & Harmony filed a proposal to establish a county-funded formal day labor site in town in May 2005. The proposed site would be in the parking lot of the old police station at the intersection of Sterling and Rock Hill roads and would include a trailer for offices, a shelter for laborers waiting at the site, portable restroom facilities and a food vendor.
"We met with faith-based groups that said they would be willing to operate it, and we met with the county that said it would be willing to fund it," O'Reilly said. "We believed we had what would be a win-win situation."
Project Hope & Harmony's proposal sparked Baughan's community meetings and prompted hundreds of people to attend Herndon's Planning Commission and Town Council sessions that summer. The Planning Commission heard 97 residents voice their opinion over two days of public hearings, and finally voted 4-3 to reject Project Hope & Harmony's proposal on Aug. 3, 2005. But on Aug. 17, 2005, after the Town Council heard 119 residents testify, with 70 speakers opposed to the site and 49 in favor of it, the council voted 5-2 in approval of Project Hope & Harmony's bid to open a day labor hiring site.
In September 2005, the council also approved an anti-solicitation ordinance that would prohibit people from seeking work in unregulated hiring sites. The law, designed to prevent laborers from gathering at the 7-Eleven and nearby areas, made it illegal for a pedestrian to solicit employment from a person traveling in a vehicle or who temporarily exits a vehicle. It was also illegal for a person in a vehicle to solicit employment from a pedestrian.
The law, "would allow the town to close, through a zoning ordinance, the unregulated site and any unregulated sites that might arise in the community," O'Reilly said.
"Did we solve what we perceived as the community problem, within the tools we had to try to solve it?" O'Reilly asked in an interview. "Yes."
'We've Had Enough'
The Town Council may have approved the creation of a hiring site, but that was hardly the end of the debate.
The national watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the town on Sept. 1, 2005, claiming that the center violated federal and state law, as well as the town's zoning ordinance. The lawsuit named six town residents who were opposed to the use of taxpayer dollars to fund a labor site.
Herndon resident George Taplin created a local chapter of the Minutemen in September 2005 and became the director of the Virginia organization. At the national level, the Minutemen's goal is to encourage the federal government to secure the nation's borders and educate the public about illegal immigration, according to Taplin. In Herndon, Taplin said, he and other volunteers attempted to deter people from hiring undocumented workers by photographing employers who frequented the 7-Eleven and, later, the Herndon Official Workers Center.
The Town Council approved the day labor site, so "there wasn't a lot we could do as far as getting the workers to disperse, but there was a lot we could do stop the people from hiring them," Taplin said.
Photographing employers, "had a profound effect because despite what everyone was saying in the newspaper, none of the employers wanted to be photographed picking up illegal laborers because they knew it was illegal," Taplin said. "They knew that they could be busted for it, so they didn't want to be photographed."
Jones, Stokes and Baughan held Help Save Herndon's first meeting in November 2005, just a month before the day labor site officially opened. About 40 people attended the meeting and heard presentations about the group's efforts to oppose the day labor site.
"When you threaten to change a person's quality of life that they are used to, there's a reaction," Baughan said. "This was one time when citizens came back and said, 'No, we've had enough.'"
To get Help Save Herndon off the ground, Jones launched the group's Web site, now www.helpsavevirginia.com, which features local and national news stories about immigration and tools for citizens to take political action. Help Save Herndon also encouraged its members to engage in local debates by speaking at council meetings and writing letters to the editors of local newspapers, Stokes said.
"A community is not just a place where you live, it's something you're a part of," Stokes said. "If you're a part of something, you have a vested interest in making sure it's as successful as it can be. It is as you make it."
'No Middle Ground'
But not all Herndon residents opposed the day labor site. Leila McDowell-Head said Herndon Embraces All with Respect and Tolerance formed in response to the controversy surrounding the day labor center. She said a group of residents had all written letters independently to The Observer criticizing the anti-immigrant sentiment in Herndon, and they decided to join forces as HEART since they shared a similar perspective on the issue.
The HOW Center opened Dec. 13, 2005, and in a Dec. 23, 2005, letter to The Observer, resident Jennifer Boysko wrote a letter signed by her and 14 other residents, to introduce HEART to the community and declare their support for the HOW Center. HEART, she wrote, opposed, "the inflammatory activities, distortions of fact, and the blanket characterization as 'criminal' or 'illegal' of people who have not been convicted of any crime." The group rejected, "harassment, disparagement and general prejudice based on race, national origin, socioeconomic status or immigration status."
A week earlier, Jones had written a letter to The Observer that said, "the day labor site will support the increase of illegal aliens, drugs, crime, and unleash a form of mental terrorism on Herndon neighborhoods. Families will now wonder about the safety of their children and caution them not to wander too far from home. They will now worry when they cannot identify those shadowy strangers in their once-quiet neighborhood. Abandoned bicycles, beer bottles, and litter will now appear."
"Somebody needed to give a response to the kinds of things they were saying. Our mission was to give accurate information," Boysko said.
Former mayor O'Reilly said that was an ugly time. There was "no ability to conciliate the two sides," he said. "There was no middle ground."
McDowell-Head said Help Save Herndon and other proponents of anti-immigration measures were "a very loud, very vociferous minority." She said the group's stance "harkens back to the era of racism and segregation in the country."
Stokes said Help Save Herndon did not contribute "to the debate in any negative way." He said there is a difference between adding a perspective to a discussion and inciting a divisive debate in town. All polarizing issues cause controversy, "that's the nature of the beast," he said.
'I Came Here to Work'
At the center of the day labor debate were people like Mario Martinez, who said he does not like being called "illegal," since he works hard to respect the country's laws. He said he learned to pay his taxes at the HOW Center and has paid them for the past two years because "it is the duty of all American citizens."
"We come here for nothing more than to look for work to support our families back in our countries," said Martinez, who came to Herndon from El Salvador seven years ago.
"There are so many good people, so many Americans with large hearts," said Nery Benitez, who emigrated from Honduras three years ago. But, he said, "there are people who you cannot even look at."
"I don't bother anybody," Benitez said. "I came here to work."
Augusto Hernandez, a day laborer from Mexico, said he once played a role in calming an employer's concerns about illegal immigration. Hernandez is taking high school courses at night and studying English with the dream of becoming a pilot. When he told his employer about these goals, the employer began to change his outlook on illegal immigration, Hernandez said.
Many people, Hernandez said, view illegal immigrants as criminals who came to the country to take jobs from Americans. He said he believes that other Americans could change their perspective if they get to know the immigrants on a personal level, "their accomplishments, their goals, what they are doing to overcome obstacles."
'A Profound Impact'
Help Save Herndon credits itself with having influenced the 2006 town elections, which unseated O'Reilly and incumbent council members Carol Bruce and Steve Mitchell, all of whom had supported the creation of the day labor site.
"Herndon voters had a profound impact on the election," Stokes said. "The results speak for themselves."
In that election, Mayor Steve DeBenedittis garnered 1,363 votes, edging out incumbent mayor O'Reilly by 130 votes, according to the Virginia State Board of Elections. About 2,600 of Herndon's 10,203 registered voters, about 26 percent, cast a ballot.
O'Reilly said he did not know how much of an influence Help Save Herndon had on the election, but "clearly people affiliated with that group were working hard to get voters to come out," he said. He lost by a small margin, he said, and there was "no clear mandate that these people were supposed to drive out all the Hispanics in our community."
"I think they organized to influence the last town elections," said Councilman Harlon Reece. Reece and Vice Mayor Dennis Husch were the only council members returned to office in that election. Reece, who had voted in favor of the day labor site, received the lowest number of votes to secure a seat on the council.
Jones said another of Help Save Herndon's pivotal accomplishments was successfully lobbying the Town Council for federal 287(g) legislation. The 287(g) program authorizes town police officers, specially trained by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to arrest without warrant, interrogate, transport, detail and process for deportation any illegal immigrant charged with certain offenses.
The Observer reported in October 2006 that Help Save Herndon's 287(g) proposal was one of the documents the current council considered when deciding on the program.
Reece said Help Save Herndon was not responsible for the passage of 287(g). Without the group's help, Reece said, the council still "would have come to the conclusion that approving a MOA with Immigration and Customs Enforcement was the right thing to do for our town."
According to Taplin, Help Save Herndon's most notable accomplishment was to encourage a balanced debate in town. The group succeeded in "getting the word out that it's OK to feel a certain way about following the laws and that illegal aliens were illegal. Once people started getting that idea and found out there were a lot more people who wanted the illegal aliens out than wanted them to stay, that's where the political power came from," he said.
A Local Response
As Help Save Herndon fought its local battles, other communities began taking note. "Eventually something happens in a jurisdiction that makes people say, 'I've had enough,'" said Greg Letiecq, founder of Help Save Manassas. "Any organization doing grassroots public policy has to be tailored to local realities."
Letiecq said he and his neighbors were concerned by the presence of illegal immigrants and residential overcrowding. "This issue for far too many residents is an issue that confronts them when they walk out of their house in the morning, and they deal with the effects all day long, every day," Letiecq said.
Letiecq, who also writes the blog Black Velvet Bruce Li, which reports on local politics in Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park, said he joined the Help Save network because of its brand recognition and because he was not aware of other groups that were working to fight illegal immigration on the local level. He said there is little coordination between groups, but occasionally they work together on a specific issue.
Jones said that when a community has enough interest in forming a Help Save chapter, organization representatives help by immediately providing the group with a Web presence, a membership forum and the tools and research needed to assess a community's specific priorities.
The Help Save leaders do not impose guidelines or principles on new groups, but they do try to serve as mentors, Stokes said. The group aims to "provide the strength of our experience," he said.
Stokes said he never thought the Help Save organization would catch on in other areas. "Help Save Herndon started for a specific purpose, for Herndon," he said. "It's due to the success we had that other groups wanted to embrace that success in their own community."
Brad Botwin, one of the founders of Help Save Maryland, said he was spurred into action in January when a temporary day labor site was established in Derwood, Md., between Rockville and Gaithersburg.
"People don't know what's going on or are frustrated and don't know where to go," he said. When they learn about Help Save Maryland, Botwin said, "people see they are not alone being opposed to illegal immigration."
Botwin said he joined the Help Save network because it seemed best tailored to the issues he wanted to address in his community. He did not sign on with the Minutemen because his group was interested in addressing health care, housing and parking issues, as well as illegal immigration, he said. There are "unique issues in Maryland that I didn't think the Minuteman title would help the cause," he said.
Letiecq said the immigration situation has improved since Help Save Manassas first became active in the community. He said there have been fewer complaints about overcrowding, possibly because "there's no longer this perception that Prince William County is welcoming to illegal aliens."
In October, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution creating a Criminal Alien Unit within the police force and authorizing trained police officers to check the immigration status of anyone who breaks the law, if they have probable cause to do so, according to the Oct. 16, 2007, resolution. They also voted to cut off certain social services for illegal immigrants who are homeless, elderly or addicted to drugs.
Letiecq credits some of his chapter's success to its large membership base, which he said was about 1,700 in October. "When you have a whole lot of members and membership is exploding on a regular basis, it demonstrates really strong to local elected officers that the populace deeply cares about the issue," he said.
Letiecq said his goal is to "declare victory and close up shop." If the group can "help find solutions for the illegal alien issue that effectively solve the problem, we get to close up shop and spend more time with our families and do other things with our lives."
'A Problem That's Disappearing'
Two years after Help Save Herndon formed, the controversial day labor site is closed and groups of workers are gathering in front of the Shell gas station on Elden Street, El Supermercado on Alabama Drive and Alabama Drive Park.
Earlier this fall, Jones said he visited the informal site at Alabama Drive Park regularly and that he was relieved that "there hasn't been this large groundswell of workers."
"I think it's a problem that's disappearing by its own accord," he said.
"The failed policy of the former Town Council (otherwise known as the day labor site) is now all but an unpleasant memory, and it's about time," Stokes wrote in a Sept. 14, 2007, letter to the editor.
Taplin announced in an Oct. 26, 2007, letter that the Minutemen have disbanded. He wrote that the immigration situation has improved and thanked the Minutemen volunteers and the Town Council for their efforts. He also recognized Help Save Herndon, saying, "I do not believe that any of our shared goals could have been achieved without them. I applaud your all for your initiative and hard work."
Judicial Watch withdrew its lawsuit once the labor site closed, according to organization president Tom Fitton. Fitton said the lawsuit led to the eventual closing of the day labor site and he is "pleased that the citizens of Herndon are no longer forced to subsidize illegal day labor."
Mukit Hossain, founder of Project Hope & Harmony, said day laborers are leaving Herndon, but it is because there is little work in Herndon, not because the site closed. He said day laborers have suffered the effects of the slow construction market and may have to move to places where there is more work and cheaper rent.
"They are leaving not because of some fictitious victory," Hossain said. Workers may be leaving because there is, "just not work in this area, not enough to support a large day worker community," he said.
Now that the labor site has closed, Help Save Herndon is focusing more of its energy on education and political advocacy. "Now we're viewed as a think tank, as a large group of highly educated individuals who are strong pillars in the community, who have put together thoughts and well-balanced positions for the town to move forward," Jones said.
The group plans to travel to Richmond in February to discuss a legislative agenda with Del. Tom Rust (R-86th) and other elected officials. This year the group members are particularly concerned that even though illegal immigrants cannot receive driver's licenses, they can still purchase and register vehicles.

Copyright © 2003 The Herndon Publishing Company

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