Pablo Alvarado

Day laborers seeking employment from street-side locations are a source of controversy. They are hired by contractors and homeowners alike, but neighbors complain of workers' drinking, urinating in public and other problems. Last month, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick requested assistance from LAPD's equestrian unit to police a long-established site on Fallbrook Avenue south of Ventura Boulevard.

A community group hoping to arm area activists and residents with information about Proposition 187 and other immigrant issues is sponsoring a free workshop Thursday titled, "Speaking Out for Justice." The workshop, organized by the Anti-Defamation and Civil Rights Awareness Committee, will center on "training trainers," said Leonor Lizardo, the committee's co-chair. "Our target audience is anyone in the community who wants to get involved," Lizardo said.

As the U.S. Senate prepares to resume debate on an immigration bill next week, Los Angeles city officials are lobbying in opposition to an amendment that would prohibit local and state governments from requiring home improvement stores to build day labor sites. If the federal bill passes, the amendment would preempt a proposed ordinance in Los Angeles, where there are 11 business-funded day labor sites.

With the presidential campaign well underway, Latino community and labor leaders are gathering in Los Angeles to develop strategies for mobilizing voters, strengthening their political influence and pushing for the legalization of undocumented immigrants. Hundreds of Latinos from throughout the nation are expected to participate in the 2nd Annual National Latino Congreso, which began Friday at the Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown and continues through Tuesday.

The U.S. Border Patrol vowed Monday to investigate allegations of a quota system at its Riverside office, which allegedly required agents to arrest a set number of illegal immigrants each month or face punishment. "The Border Patrol has never had a quota system and is not expected to operate on quotas," said Agent Richard Velez, an agency spokesman. "Right now these allegations are under investigation. We will soon find out what happened."

In what is being billed as the first national conference for day laborers, workers and their advocates are meeting today at Cal State Northridge to forge a national strategy for improving working conditions for an underrepresented group. The conference, which ends Sunday, will focus on workers' rights, immigration, and law enforcement issues affecting day-laborers. In Southern California, an estimated 20,000 men solicit work on streets daily, organizers said.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck stepped into the national immigration debate Thursday, announcing that hundreds of illegal immigrants arrested by his officers each year in low-level crimes would no longer be turned over to federal authorities for deportation. The new rules, which are expected to affect about 400 people arrested each year, mark a dramatic attempt by the nation's second-largest police department to distance itself from federal immigration policies that Beck says unfairly treat undocumented immigrants suspected of committing petty offenses.

The Costa Mesa City Council is expected to decide tonight whether to reopen debate on the planned June 30 closure of the Costa Mesa Job Center, a publicly funded facility for day laborers that opened in 1988.

Hardware giant Home Depot is preparing to test a program here that has little to do with tools or paint, but if successful could grease the wheels for the chain's massive expansion in California. Addressing concerns about the day laborers who have become fixtures at many of its parking lots, the home improvement chain has teamed up with a fast-growing temporary worker agency to run a hiring center at its new Woodland Hills store, which is expected to open next month. Tacoma, Wash.

The midday sun was boring down like a hot iron, and Jose Azbar and his friends still hadn't landed jobs. Many had arrived at daybreak. They were fed up, angry, their hopes dashed for finding jale--Spanish slang for work. "This place is a good idea, a good concept, but right now it's costing us time and money," Azbar, 36, complained as friends nodded in agreement. "For most of us, if we don't work, we don't eat, our families don't eat."