An immigrant-rights advocate publicly has called the city of Aurora racist. A councilwoman has accused his group of poverty pimping. And now Colorado’s third-largest city is not only pushing day laborers off its streets, but trying to keep them from gathering at all.
Curious developments in a town that touts its “All-America City” award for “outstanding civic accomplishments” — an honor it sought from the National Civic League partly for its efforts to integrate immigrants.
“They’re targeting our people,” says Minsun Ji, director of El Centro Humanitario. “They don’t want us in Aurora.”
At issue are dozens of day laborers who solicit work on the sidewalks of old Aurora. Many are undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America. You know, the kind willing to break their backs fixing our roofs, pulling our weeds and cleaning out our septic tanks. They are the least powerful among us. And, like it or not, they are the face of our informal economy.
City brass long have griped about their presence on the stretch of Dayton Street between East Colfax and East 16th avenues. Aurora police regularly ticket them for trespassing, shoo them from public sidewalks and, as workers tell it, call them wetbacks and worse.
“We’re flies in a glass of milk to them,” said Jorge Reyes, 36, waiting in a patch of shade last week for work to feed his family.
The Denver-based El Centro began organizing in Aurora because of the city’s large immigrant population and growing number of workers being stiffed by unscrupulous bosses.
The group initiated talks with the city about finding a building in which it would provide English lessons, computer training, a health clinic and a safer place for laborers to gather.
It seemed like a great deal for a city that wanted the workers out of sight in its gentrifying arts district along Colfax.
Unless, of course, the goal was to have them disappear altogether.
Aurora abruptly ended talks about a gathering place in May, then started pursuing measures to drive the workers out.
City zoning code states that “temporary employment offices” must be 1,500 feet apart. The council is expected Monday to stretch the definition of such offices to include nonprofits like El Centro. Because for-profit temp agencies already are doing business in the arts district — which has the best transit accessibility for workers — the ordinance effectively would keep El Centro from occupying a building in the area.
City staffers also have considered a legally questionable measure that would ban laborers from soliciting work on Aurora streets.
The debate turned personal last month when El Centro’s policy chief defied officials’ admonishments not to speak out publicly by questioning the “racism” and “discrimination” he says are driving their policies.
“We’re not going to be silenced anymore,” said Harold Lasso, a well-known organizer who is resigning from El Centro after making his comments to the City Council.
Councilwoman Molly Markert lashed back, accusing the charitable El Centro of “prostituting workers for your own gain.” She could not be reached about what exactly she meant.
Mayor Ed Tauer also would not discuss the plight of day laborers under an administration that cites immigrant integration and fighting poverty among its top priorities.
Which leaves me wondering what those goals really mean in his “All-America City” that seems so intent on quietly driving out its poorest, most vulnerable residents.
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
