Ten day laborers were arrested a few days ago in Queens for alleged disorderly conduct. These workers' arrest by the police represents a change in the city's public policy. Before this policy becomes the norm, we should analyze what this implies for the city.

Without a doubt, the workers' situation – looking for work on street corners – is not ideal. The presence of laborers on the corners drops whenever they have access to the facilities of the Home Depot chain of stores or to hiring centers created by the community. In this city there are only a couple of centers and few efforts to support the workers who look for jobs by the day.

Despite the traffic problems and occasional conflicts with neighbors, the reality is that for years the police – the workers and the community leaders who intercede for them – have succeeded in minimizing these problems. The problem between the day laborers and the Queens residents seems to me an ordinary and everyday one. Certainly it does not justify the escalation of consequences for the undocumented workers.

The claim that the laborers are being given a break from criminal prosecution is false. Simply put, day laborers depend on the work they can find on the street corners in order to support their families.

Given these circumstances, the greatest probability is that the workers who were arrested will go back to the corners to look for work. If they are then detained again, the local authorities would have to arrest and process the workers, and initiate deportation proceedings with immigration authorities. New York would then join a list of cities where the immigrant laborer conflict has escalated.

Nevertheless, many of the cities that have experienced similar circumstances have decided to abandon their efforts to become involved with the federal authorities in seeking compliance with the immigration laws. On the one hand, they have found that the effort is extremely costly. On the other hand, such efforts have derailed their attention to their cities' more serious and important priorities.

The most important reason local authorities abandon cooperation [with their federal counterparts] in the deportation of undocumented immigrants is that it is not an effective immigration policy. Day laborers continue to congregate in the area, and contractors continue to hire them. Even more, in the cities that are hostile toward immigrants, a decline in economic activity is reported when the laborers abandon the area.

I wonder if that is the kind of city we want. A city that is unwilling to receive the immigrant who seeks us out as a bridge to progress. A city where tolerance is lost and we are guided in our public policy by prejudice.

Edwin Melendez is Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at CUNY.