Expect To See A Lot More Of This..

Source: San Diego Union Tribune

RANCHO PENASQUITOS – Dozens of migrant workers returned to their canyon encampments Saturday afternoon to find their belongings slashed to pieces, police said yesterday.

Several small encampments throughout Rancho Peñasquitos were targeted in a string of attacks, said attorney Claudia Smith of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

“It was truly stunning to see and pick your way through maybe 100 items, and every one of them is slashed. Jackets right down the middle,” said Smith, who notified police after reports of the attacks began to pour in Saturday. “This was so vicious and so deliberate.”

San Diego police Capt. Boyd Long said the incidents were under investigation.

Officers interviewed victims yesterday and toured the encampments, including one near Rancho Peñasquitos Boulevard and state Route 56.

It was unclear if there were witnesses or how many people were responsible for the vandalism.

The destruction appeared methodical, Smith said; for example, all the pants were slashed from the crotch down the side of the leg.

Pencils, cell phone chargers and a child’s belt were not spared, she said.

“One old man kept saying to me ‘mis zapatos (my shoes),’ making a slashing movement in the air,” Smith said. “The workers were just stunned.”

Authorities say some of the encampments emerged in the area after migrants were ordered to clear out of nearby McGonigle Canyon in November.

The workers, many of whom are undocumented, had squatted on private land in McGonigle Canyon off and on for the past 20 years.

Landowners and police were working on a long-term plan to close the encampments last year, but the effort was hastened in November when residents, joined by supporters of the Minuteman Project, loudly protested the camps.

Developer D.R. Horton, one of the landowners, since has posted No Trespassing signs in McGonigle Canyon and torn down the large shantytown.

Many of the evicted migrants are believed to have relocated to Rancho Peñasquitos on land that is part of an open-space preserve and part privately owned, police said. Caltrans also owns some of the land along the freeway.

When the government won't act, the people will.

H/T immigration watchdog

Technorati Tags: illegal immigration, shantytown, california, migrants

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