Starting on January 1, day laborers gathering at Throckmorton Street in Freehold could be arrested and deported.
Three years ago Throckmorton Street was legally authorized by the Town
Council as the area where contractors could pick up workers for hire. On November 10, Freehold’s Town Council started a campaign to inform both day laborers and contractors that it was ending this activity.
Every morning approximately 200 immigrants workers—mainly from Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and Ecuador—gather, at this site by the railroad tracks, to wait for jobs that help support themselves and their families.
The campaign to disseminate the Council’s decision includes announcements over the radio and the distribution of flyers in Freehold as well as in Mexico, in places such as Oaxaca, Chiapas and Puebla, where authorities believe most of the day laborers are from. The flyers inform of the closure of the Throckmorton site, and detail the penalties for violations. They also warn that detainees’ names could be given to state authorities and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“The plan to designate workers to one area in order to prevent their standing at various corners of the city didn’t work,” said Michael Wilson, the mayor of Freehold. For this reason we have decided to close the site. [Throckmorton] has become a hotel lobby for contractors, attracting hundreds of day laborers from cities like Red Bank, Lakewood, Long Beach and from Middlesex and Ocean counties. Contractors also come from far away areas because we are offering cheap labor free of taxes.”
Day laborers gathered at the site on November 10 said the Council’s decision was unfair. “We are peaceful people who only want to earn money to support our families,” said Michael Loiza.
Day laborers could be charged with disorderly conduct after January 1, which carries a maximum fine of $500 and 30 days in jail. Cecila Reynolds, a local community activist, who is part of the information campaign in Mexico said that “[e]ven though I don’t agree with the Council’s decision, right now my job is to help these workers not get into legal trouble.”
