More on Duroville

Here's an excerpt from the Court's decision in U.S. v. Duro, et al.:

The Park, or Duroville or Los Duros, as it is better known by its residents, is not a business, it is a village; thousands of our fellow human beings call the Park home. It is not nearly as safe or as healthy as we would want it to be; it is, nonetheless, home for a community of people who are poor, undereducated, disenfranchised, and, in many respects, exploited. The Court must also add that, despite these disadvantages, these very same people, based on the evidence at trial, are an honest, hard-working, proud, colorful, and family-oriented community of people committed to educating their children and raising them to be productive and successful members of our society. The evidence at trial indicates that some are undocumented, some are resident aliens, and some are United States citizens; this complicated combination of immigration statuses places many of the residents of the Park in the crossroads of our Nation’s incongruous immigration and agricultural policies that, on the one hand, portend that undocumented workers lack legal status while at the same time predicating the economic efficiency of an agricultural industry on their hard work; it appears to this Court that we have, once again, established a rather“peculiar institution” to service our agrarian needs.

In any event, the evidence at trial clearly established that to accede to the government’s – and now Mr. Duro’s – request to promptly close the Park, without identifying where the vast majority of its residents would then live, would create a major humanitarian crisis. For the Court to close the Park under current conditions would create one of the largest forced human migrations in the history of this State. Unlike another forced migration in this State’s history – the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II – there is not even a Manzanar for these residents to go. [See footnote below] The Court, since the early hearings in this case, has pressed the government to identify and present relocation proposals for the residents of the Park. Although the Court recognizes and applauds the efforts of various government actors, including the United States Attorney himself, to explore potential alternatives, and although the County of Riverside, under the leadership of Supervisor Roy Wilson and his colleagues, and with the support of Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have together made significant strides in developing and funding potential alternatives, the evidence at trial clearly establishes that any such alternatives are many months, and perhaps several years, away. Moreover, any of the proposed alternatives are further complicated by the immigration issue referenced above. As unsafe and unhealthy as the Park may be – circumstances the Court has observed first-hand through its visits to the park – it nonetheless offers a shelter in place for a people who otherwise have nowhere to go. Until and unless alternative housing is available – alternative housing that is safe, healthy, affordable and truly available to the residents – this Court will not close Duroville.

[footnote] Counsel's concerns about the safety and health conditions at the Park are well taken; however, without any available alternative, counsel's implicit assumption that a forced closure and relocation out of the Park -- presumably employing United States Marshals to compel those who refused to move -- would somehow result in the residents landing in either a safer or healthier location is not only speculative but is, based on the evidence admitted at trial, highly unlikely. The closure sought by the government, in the manner it is sought, is qualitatively different than the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II in that it does not represent in a deprivation of one’s treasured liberty; nevertheless, the parallel between the Court-sanctioned, forced relocation of thousands of vulnerable individuals during a sad chapter in our nation’s history, and the remedy sought by the government in this case, especially when viewed in the context of the precarious immigration status of so many of the residents of the Park, is striking.