"I don't want to get hung up talking about that," Carlos said in Spanish, referring to the news headlines on immigration legislation. "I mean, you have to stay positive, you know? Best not to dwell on those things. But yeah, there are lots of abusive people out there. If you don't get paid, if you get injured \u2026 well, what can you do. Just got to keep working and hope things turn out for the better." A former muralist from Valle del Bravo, Mexico state, Carlos is in his fifth year working as a jornalero, or day laborer, in Austin. He's in his early 40s, but he says that swinging a shovel under the sun seven days a week has added 20 years of wear to his lower back. He is among hundreds of immigrants working as informal day laborers in the city.

Employers in today's restricted economy are hard-pressed to cut costs. As budgets tighten, some see skirting the safety and wages of their immigrant employees — people with little real protection — as the easiest means to save on their bottom line. The National Day Labor Survey of 2006 found that although U.S. labor law extends to all workers regardless of immigration status, nearly half of day laborers surveyed experienced at least one instance of wage theft in the two preceding months. A local study by the Workers Defense Project and the University of Texas says that construction contractors, the second-biggest employer of day laborers after individual homeowners and landscapers, withhold pay from one of every five of their workers.

Today, Carlos and his buddy Santiago, a silent, skinny bricklayer fresh in from Juárez, Chihuahua, lucked out with a job installing a small stone patio in a South Austin backyard. (Both agreed to be interviewed on condition that their last names be withheld.) At the end of five hours' hard work they'll have $100 to split between them. "See, look at us now. Things always work out," he grinned. "Fifty dollars, for that I would have to paint a damn big wall back home. And this yard is shady!" But despite Carlos' persistent optimism, $10 an hour — the median wage for day laborers — is below the federal poverty line and hardly enough to support a family.  Safety violations are commonplace. With a construction worker dying on the job every two and a half days, Texas is the state with the highest death and injury rate for this type of work, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. (click on link to read the full story)