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Home Depot in LA installs noise machines that ‘penetrate bones’ to deter day laborers
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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Are they allowed to be hired or does tht happen off-the-books illegally? Undeclared work around construction is not rare where I'm from but the scale of it just surprises me, that you'd just wait around in a parking lot for work.
I live in San Diego, California. where I can literally see the city of Tijuana, Mexico.
Day laborers would traditionally gather near the entrance of Home Depot or Lowes just beyond their property lines early everyday.
They will then solicit themselves to customers by offering to do either construction, landscaping, painting, moving or other physical labor jobs for cash paid work of either a half day or a full day.
They will not do anything less than 4 hours of work because it may result in them not getting another job for the rest of the day. They will often ask for a small amount upfront or at a minimum: a verbal agreement on a total amount to be paid in cash when completed.
They work hard and do a good job. Now however, they do not congregate in large groups anymore and many are just getting jobs being paid under the table doing gardening or whatever. Anything to stay below ICE's radar.
I'm guessing most of these are people who have come in illegally or otherwise don't have work permits? It makes more sense that they're hired for simpler handyman stuff, I was imagining some bigger construction projects where at least where I live they can be pretty strict about checking the paperwork. Off-the-books handyman stuff is somewhat common, but theyre hired through different ways. "I know a guy", some websites or Facebook groups. Usually it is local or maybe Estonian people who do it because they want to avoid taxes.
They do not have any documents, permits or reasonable identification most of the time. They are truly illegal immigrants who came to the USA illegally using what we call Coyotes (Human smugglers) who move humans to the US for a paid fee (very similar to what immigrants coming by boat to the shores of the EU or UK go through in a way).
They send some or all of their earnings back to Mexico btw. Sometimes the money goes to a wife and kids there, other times it's for an ailing parent/sibling. They're truly taking a risk to better their lives.
LA county is more populated than most entire states. It’s a numbers game. My husband hired a Home Depot laborer to tile the entire house (before we met) for like 1K. That kind of labor on the books would cost probably 5x that because of overhead.
I don’t see how it’s possible to police under the table work. Many labor deals fly under the radar because of that fact.
Now, the downside to hiring cheap labor is that there’s absolutely no recourse should the worker fuck up your house or project. I’d personally never hire someone to do an under the table job for something important like a roof or electrical work.
There are almost no trades certifiers in the US.