Tom Tancredo? Ira Mehlman? Jan Brewer? In terms of motivation, Mr. Alvarado is there with them every step of the way. He just happens to be on the other end of the political spectrum, regarding the illegal immigration debate.
After helping launch The Institute for Popular Education of Southern California, an organization that runs half a dozen day labor sites for the City of Los Angeles, and provides innumerable types of assistance to legal and illegal immigrants, he went on to start the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
Yes, there is such a thing.
In fact, the NDLON which is based in Los Angeles, has been around for a few years now. The organization has more than sufficient funding, employees, a staff attorney, dozens of organizations with which it partners across the country, and an almost religious devotion to the idea of obtaining legalization for undocumented workers and their families.
Pablo Alvarado's National Day Laborer Organizing Network headquarters is located just outside the western the edge of MaCarthur Park, east of L.A.'s Koreatown.
Interested in purchasing bootleg DVD's of recently released movies or knock-off designer handbags? At least some of the street vendors near MaCarthur Park should be able to hook you up. Do you require forged identification documents? Take a stroll through MaCarthur Park. That's what a crew from 60 Minutes did several years ago when seeking to illustrate the availability of fake drivers licenses and Social Security cards.
Are these NDLON affiliated or sponsored enterprises? No. Are these "businesses" relatively common features in America's largest sanctuary city, particularly in illegal alien neighborhoods? Absolutely.
As you can imagine, Pablo Alvarado is no fan of the recent legislation enacted in Arizona. His organization has sponsored a website urging resistance and opposition to the efforts to enhance enforcement directed at that state's undocumented population ( AltoArizona.com ). Employees and other persons associated with the NDLON have participated in and orchestrated civil disobedience protests in response to SB 1070.
When interviewed about the new immigration enforcement policies in Arizona, Mr. Alvarado described them as "absolutely unacceptable to our community." And insofar as that assessment is concerned, I could not agree more. He's absolutely right. In fact, to families and neighborhoods saturated with illegal aliens, enforcement of employment, residency and local code regulations, makes the lives of the undocumented nearly impossible.
In a sanctuary city like Los Angeles, where law enforcement routinely looks the other way, people can continue to pour into the community and engage in all manner of law violations necessary to sustain the existence of most illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Citing fruit vendors at freeway onramps for failing to properly refrigerate and store produce, however, is not part of that equation. Confiscating and arresting hot dog vendors preparing food at non-code compliant and unlicensed stands is also contrary to the running of a sanctuary city. Further, checking the residency status of unlicensed drivers pulled over for moving violations is a near disaster for illegal aliens. And of course, day laborer restrictions cripple the cash-driven economy of illegal alien saturated locations like Los Angeles, Houston and San Bernardino.
In fact, sizeable illegal alien communities rely on non-enforcement of all sorts of local and federal laws. They simply can't get by without it. Stripped of the ability to steal Social Security numbers, deal in forged ID's and engage in about a dozen other prohibited types of conduct, the whole system falls apart.
Therefore, we can expect Pablo Alvarado to fight like hell. What has taken place in Arizona he cannot permit to continue, much less spread to other states. It's real simple. The minute laws apply to illegal aliens in the same fashion as they do to everyday American citizens, his "community" ceases to exist. Pablo Alvarado has spent much of his life assisting illegal aliens in the U.S. And he has recently watched tens of thousands of the undocumented, along with their American-born children, flee the Copper State. He knows that law enforcement works, and that, Pablo Alvarado simply cannot permit - not if his "community" is to survive in the U.S.
For more information about the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, log on to http://www.ndlon.org/ .
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