Two construction workers work on a construction project above Umphrey Lee Center. (PRAVEEN SATHIANATHAN/The Daily Campus)

It’s still dark out and the sun hasn’t even begun to rise. Dressed in khaki-colored work boots, denim, baseball caps and hoodies, they stand in groups of a dozen or more on street corners around Dallas-Fort Worth. They are day laborers, and they are waiting for someone to drive by and offer them work, from construction to lawn care. They’ll take anything.

Day Labor Centers are popping up around the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex to serve local demands for temporary labor. Plano, Garland and Fort Worth have all opened Day Labor Centers in recent years. Irving is considering a center.

The centers mostly appeal to illegal Hispanic immigrants. In the recent past the influx of immigrants from the Texas-Mexico border has rocketed, and the recession has contributed to a decline of jobs that once were available to them. The housing market crash has left many illegal immigrants without work. There are no homes to build, paint or landscape.

“Immigrants are hurt more and impacted more by recessions, but tend to do better than natives in times of expansions because they are willing to move where jobs are and fill low-skilled positions Americans shun,” Dr. Pia Orrenius, senior economist and research officer for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said.

Plano Day Labor Center, located at 805 Ozark Drive, opens at 6:30 a.m., and workers like 20-year-old Jose arrive and check in on a computer system with their center-issued I.D. card. The card was issued to Jose after he completed an application with the center, and it contains his photo, name, birth date and a barcode.

“I began using the center after being taken advantage of by some contractors; some just couldn’t be trusted,” Jose said, in an interview conducted in Spanish. “Sometimes I wouldn’t receive the correct amount of pay after I completed a job.”

Jose left his family behind in Zacatecas, Mexico. He requested his real name not to be used because he is working and living in the United States illegally. Jose said the Day Labor Centers provide shelter and organization, while keeping him out of trouble.

“The major argument in immigration is whether foreign born workers are substitutes or complements of American workers,” Dr. Orrenius said. “Many anti-immigration movements are founded on the basis that foreign born workers are direct substitutes of American workers and drive down wages for the American worker.”

According to SMU political science professors, the most common misconception of illegal immigrants is that they are taking American jobs, but in fact immigrants have contributed to helping the states get back on their feet through the recession. Day laborers take the jobs that many don’t seek at a much lower cost. They are paid less for high-demand jobs, and this has helped contractors save money during a recession.

“I would argue that Mexican workers are compliments to American workers because they allow Americans to keep their high-end jobs, while they feed the high demand of low-skilled jobs that keeps construction, restaurants, hotels and other businesses running,” James Hollifield, SMU political science professor, said.

Some Americans feel the lax immigration laws currently in place are the reason violence on the border has escalated. The Obama administration is feeling heat from protesters on Capitol Hill to place immigration reform at the top of the policy agenda after spending nearly a year on health care reform. It is expected, by the end of this year, that the Obama administration’s next policy goal will be the charged issue of immigration.

In the absence of federal immigration law, Arizona legislators are taking their own steps toward immigration reform. Arizona lawmakers recently passed legislation that would allow the state to impose some of the toughest immigration laws in the country. The bill, expected to go into effect in early May, has attracted heated debates for several of its provisions that would allow state police to arrest or question Hispanics by racial profiling.

The provisions would also allow the state police to consider day laborers and contractors – who slow down the flow of traffic – looking for work a criminal act.

“The amount of work, what the job consists of and the pay are negotiated between the worker and the contractor, who is any individual or company in need of help,” Plano Day Labor Center supervisor Adrian Magallanes said. “I have seen pay for workers range anywhere from $6 to $20 an hour.”

The Plano Day Labor Centers provides 25 to 55 percent of its workers with employment on a daily basis. The Plano center registers nearly 3,200 workers, but the Plano Day Labor Center Web site states that the city of Plano does not check worker documentation and speculates that the DART Rail Downtown Plano and Parker Road stations attract many different workers from all over the metroplex.

“The center provides an organized location and workers are not violating the city’s ordinance by standing out on street corners,” Magallanes said. “It [Plano Day Labor Center] gets guys off the streets and cleans up the appearance of the city.”

“I like the center because I am in a safe environment, even though it may be more competitive to find work here because there are so many more people, I would prefer to wait indoors on a cold rainy day and not risk getting in trouble on the streets,” Jose said.

The appeal of protection and safety Jose and many others find in the Plano Day Labor Center is not as common in other parts of the metroplex. The Shell gas station and corner store on Beltline Road in Irving had laborers waiting outside for work one recent morning before the gas station attendant had even arrived.

Fernando, a middle-aged Mexican man from Zacatecas, Mexico, waited outside of the Shell gas station. He has never been to a Day Labor Center, and he doesn’t think much of them either.

“They just want to make their city look better, but we aren’t committing crimes on these street corners, we just want to work for ourselves and our families,” Fernando said. “We are doing the same thing they are doing in the center, negotiating with contractors for work, and we get more jobs out here than they do in there.”

“Many laborers complain about there being too many people looking for jobs here and don’t like the center because they have to compete with too many other workers,” Magallanes said. “Where on street corners there aren’t as many as there are in the center.”

Orrenius said immigrants play an important role in the United States labor force participation because the native labor force population is aging.

“Even through the recession the United States is still a world-leading, competitive economy that depends on immigrants to work in low-skilled jobs where even our poorer individuals, considered a wealthier society, are too rich to consider doing those jobs,” Orrenius said.

According to Orrenius, immigration and the economy go hand in hand, for as world economic leaders emerge, immigration is an important factor of the country’s wealth, growing labor force and their status in the world market.