Sue CASA

The fight over CASA Latina’s relocation to 17th Avenue South and
South Jackson Street got even uglier this week when Judicial Watch, a
right-wing group instrumental in the 2004 attacks on John Kerry’s war
record—among other things—entered the fray.

Last May, a 16-member neighborhood committee was assembled to work
out a Good Neighbor Agreement with CASA Latina after area residents
became concerned the immigrant-worker center might bring trouble to the
area.

The committee struggled to reach an agreement and several members
and neighbors—opposed to CASA Latina’s relocation to their
neighborhood—called in the cavalry, in the form of Judicial
Watch. Neighborhood resident and committee fill-in Alfred Shiga said he
is concerned about a potential increase in crime in the neighborhood.
“The government has a duty to uphold [immigration] law,” he said. Shiga
also noted, contradictorily, that “work should be done to change the
law.”

The Washington, D.C.–based Judicial Watch—which
previously provided legal support for a Pennsylvania town’s attempts to
penalize illegal immigrants’ landlords and employers, and successfully
shut down an immigrant-worker center in Herndon, Virginia—has
already fired off a vaguely threatening letter requesting the city
immediately cease funding CASA Latina, claiming the city is paying for
a program that encourages illegal immigration. “For the city to use
taxpayer resources in this manner is akin to the city operating its own
‘red light’ district or illegal drug market,” the letter says.

Given such inflammatory rhetoric, Judicial Watch seems an odd player
in what’s supposed to be a mediation process. CASA Latina bowed out of
a community meeting on September 24 in protest of Judicial Watch’s
presence. Regardless, Christopher Farrell—Judicial Watch’s
all-business, pinstriped director of investigations—was there, he
says, without being paid.

At the meeting, Farrell presented the argument against CASA Latina
to a large crowd, which included South Seattle superliberal senator
Adam Kline and reps for Senator Maria Cantwell and King County Council
Member Larry Gossett, at the Douglass-Truth Library in the Central
District. Farrell’s argument was all over the map, initially claiming
programs like CASA Latina’s lead to worker abuses, before asking the
audience, “What other laws don’t you want to follow?” Finally, Farrell
went after neighbors’ fears about decreased property values.

The city, which has contributed $250,000 to CASA Latina’s move and
also contributes about $141,000 to the organization annually, defends
CASA Latina as a worthwhile organization that helps “people support
themselves and their families” and seems prepared to take Judicial
Watch on. The city attorney’s office responded to Judicial Watch on
September 25, attacking their “thinly veiled campaign of press
releases, scare tactics, and threats of frivolous lawsuits,” and firmly
stating that Judicial Watch’s “efforts to bully the city into
withdrawing financial support from a worthy social service… will not
work.”

Hilary Stern, director of CASA Latina, says they’re in full
compliance with labor laws.

jonah@thestranger.com