The government's case for closing down a Thermal-area mobile home park where upward of 2,000 migrant workers live may be on “wobbly” ground, given new questions about what standards its owner allegedly failed to follow, an attorney said Monday.

Proceedings in the civil trial that could determine the fate of the Desert Mobile Home Park — better known as “Duroville” — are scheduled to resume Wednesday, when federal prosecutors are expected to file briefs stating what criteria the government used to deem the facility illegal.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, through the U.S. Attorney's Office, is seeking to have Duroville shut down over health and safety concerns. The 40-acre park, which is located on the Torres- Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Reservation, has been the target of two federal lawsuits, the most recent one filed in October 2007.

The BIA alleges park owner Harvey Duro is running an illegal commercial operation because he never obtained a BIA- approved lease to rent spaces at the location, where between 2,000 and 5,000 migrant workers and their families reside in some 300 largely dilapidated travel coaches.

Federal officials also allege Duro failed to abide by terms of a 2004 settlement agreement reached with the BIA to stave off further legal action against the park, which Duro was required to clean up, but didn't, according to court papers.

U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson began hearing testimony in the case on April 7. Among the first witnesses called was Jim Fletcher, superintendent of the BIA's Southern California Region. He testified that despite recent improvements at Duroville, the park remained rife with environmental hazards and needed to be closed in 90 days.

Tenants' attorney Chandra Spencer asked Fletcher why Duroville was the focus of so much attention, and not three other mobile-home facilities on the Indian reservation, within a half-mile of the Desert Mobile Home Park.