May 1 has become a rallying day for immigrant rights, and a local march and vigil is planned in Ossining tomorrow night.

“We want to support our community, especially a lot of children in our school district who are not documented and are going through hard times. And not only in Ossining, it’s nationwide,” said Daysi Luz Briones, a member of St. Ann’s Church. Parishioners organized the event under the name We Are Workers – Somos Trabajadores Committee.

An American citizen born in Peru, Briones said, “We feel we need to give back.”

The marchers will call for comprehensive immigration reform, particularly the legalization of college students under the proposed DREAM Act; driver’s licenses for immigrants, and a stop to immigration raids.

The candlelight vigil starts at 6:30 p.m. at St. Ann’s, at 25 Eastern Ave. Speakers from local government and community groups are scheduled to be part of a program at 7 p.m.

The New York Immigration Coalition is holding a march at 1:30 p.m. in Madison Square in Manhattan.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer will hold a hearing at 2 today on “Comprehensive Immigration Reform 2009, Can we do it and how?” You can watch a webcast here.

Among the speakers are Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve; former INS Commissioner Doris Meissner; attorney Kris Kobach, who represented Hazelton, Pa., in defending its immigration-crackdown bills, and Police Chief J. Thomas Manger of Montgomery County, Md., and the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

The civil rights group that sued Mamaroneck over the harassment of day laborers is turning its attention to Carmel.

The town supervisor there, along with Assemblyman Greg Ball, announced plans to arrest laborers who congregate in front of Mahopac-area businesses on charges of trespassing. Merchants would sign a document authorizing police to make arrests on the sidewalks outside their stores, according to the officials.

A “trespass affidavit program” has been used in New York City apartment buildings, but no community has used it to bar people from public sidewalks, the organization LatinoJustice PRLDEF wrote in a letter to Carmel Supervisor Kenneth Schmitt and Putnam County Sheriff Donald Smith.

“We assume that is because such a program would be flagrantly unconstitutional,” president and general counsel Cesar Perales wrote. He continued:

While the rights of persons on public sidewalks are not absolute, they can be restricted only if they violate some law or regulation preserving public order. Persons may not be prevented from congregating on a public sidewalk unless they substantially obstruct pedestrian traffic.

Schmitt could not be reached this afternoon.

Update: Ed Kowalski will not be appearing at the upcoming Greg Ball press conference. Ball’s media contact, Chris Arnold, said he made an error when sending out the press release.

On the heels of a trespassing program state Assemblyman Greg Ball unveiled in Mahopac last week, Ball is again expected to hold another immigration related press conference Thursday, this time in Carmel. The topic: “anti-deportation measures hidden in the state budget to be exposed by Ball.”

Ball is bringing experts, he said, to discuss a piece of legislation he is bringing forth that would close a loophole that allows criminal illegal immigrants to avoid deportation.

Ball claims that these criminals now can avoid deportation by getting them into treatment programs and not plead guilty. “Meaning that if they enter and complete treatment, they could have their case dismissed,” he said.

Ball is bringing his go-to immigration experts, former ICE agent Mike Cutler and Ed Kowalski, director of 9/11 Families for a Secure America to the outdoor event at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, 3 County Center, Carmel.

An Arizona newspaper has earned a Pulitzer Prize for its five-part series investigating the record of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who gained fame for his tactics in arresting illegal immigrants.

The East Valley Tribune, in a series called “Reasonable Doubt,” found that there were hidden costs, including slower response times, rampant overtime and a dropping arrest rate. The prize for local reporting is shared with the Detroit Free Press for its reporting on the mayor’s scandal.

You can read the entire series here.

State Assemblyman Greg Ball was out today, along with Carmel Supervisor Ken Schmitt, to introduce a plan to crackdown on Hispanic day laborers hanging around downtown Mahopac in search of employment.

The Trespass Affidavit Program works by getting local merchants would sign an affidavit that would effectively allow cops to break up large crowds standing in front of stores. Authorities could make arrests on criminal trespassing grounds. Some business owners say the number of men hanging on the sidewalks in recent years has swelled from 10 to 50.

Ball said the law is similar to one used by the Manhattan D.A.s Office. Ball has until now focused on the immigration issues in nearby Brewster.

Read more about this in my colleague Barbara Livingston Nackman story in tomorrow’s lohud.com and The Journal News.

Unlike other states, New York continues to have a growing undocumented population, according to the latest estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center. (I wrote about the center’s new study in today’s Journal News and in this blog.)

Researcher Jeffrey Passel puts the statewide figure at about 800,000 to 1 million, up from 350,000 in 1990 and 725,000 in 2000. There was a dip in the number in 2005, to 625,000.

Passel cautioned against focusing on any year-to-year changes, but noted that New York’s increase is substantial:

It’s very clear from the data we have that the immigrant population overall is up in New York over the last three years. And based on this analysis, it appears that it’s up in part because of undocumented immigration.

New York is behind only California, Texas and Florida in the size of its illegal immigrant population. California’s remains huge (about 2.7 million), but the growth is happening at faster rates elsewhere.

In a conference call yesterday, Passel was asked repeatedly whether there was any evidence that immigrants were returning home in greater numbers. Anecdotes abound, given the job shortages and increased enforcement, but there is no data showing a change, he said. A lot of people leave every year, but that’s always been the case; it’s just that fewer are arriving. So the overall estimate on illegal immigrants is still about 12 million.

Mexican studies have found no change in the numbers of people returning from the United States. Passel cited Mexico’s quarterly employment surveys, which found large numbers of people returning, but not a change from previous years.

The Pew Hispanic Center released a new set of estimates today on the size and characteristics of the undocumented population, which has surged in size since 1990 but leveled off in 2006. The center has put the number of undocumented at 11.9 million, or 4 percent of the nation’s population.

Here are some highlights of the new report:

• About 8.3 million unauthorized immigrants were working in the United States as of March 2008, accounting for 4 percent of the overall population and 5.4 percent of the work force. In New York, the percentage is 6.7 percent.


• The undocumented are more likely than either American-born residents or legal immigrants to be married and have children — due largely to the fact that they are younger than the overall population. Almost half of “unauthorized immigrant households” consist of a couple with children, compared to 21 percent of U.S.-born households.


• Most children of undocumented immigrants — 73 percent — are Americans by birth.


• Among all K-12 students in the United States, 6.8 percent have at least one undocumented parent.

The report by Jeffrey Passel and D’Vera Cohn, available here, is titled “A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States.” The estimates are produced by combining census data with data on legal immigrants.

Updated: Here is a chart from the report showing the family dynamics of this population. There are 4 million U.S.-born children with parents who are undocumented.

The White House has announced changes in the U.S. restrictions on traveling and sending money to Cuba. Here’s a summary by USA Today:

(President) Obama’s announcement lifted travel and remittance restrictions put in place by President George W. Bush. His policy limited travel to Cuba to two weeks every three years, and restricted that travel to only immediate family members.

The new rules also expand the items that can be sent to Cuba, such as clothing, personal hygiene and fishing equipment. It still prohibits sending items to senior government officials and Communist Party members.

There is much, much discussion about the immigration issue all of a sudden, in the wake of the front-page NY Times story. I wasn’t sure what to make of the big splash, because the new statements from the Obama administration were a reiteration — with more emphasis and immediacy this time — that the new president will press ahead with a legalization bill even in this economic climate.

Times writer Julia Preston discussed the story this morning on the Brian Lehrer Show, saying it’s still not clear what the timetable for this process will be. She described the administration as testing the waters on this issue, trying to blunt the impact, rather than just lobbing a bill into Congress and seeing it explode — again.

The strategy could be described as opposite to the one taken by Gov. Spitzer when he moved to extend driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status. That plan did not require legislative approval, but it came up so abruptly, and received such a backlash, that he had to back off.

It will be interesting to see the issue discussed in purely economic terms — the financial and tax-related implications of having millions of people file for legal status. I spoke to a local businessman yesterday who believes wholeheartedly in a legalization bill, but sees no way that such an argument can win at a time when Americans under such financial stress.

So the advocates have their work cut out for them. It does feel like a new phase in the debate. Here is one of many statements I’ve received advocates, this one from the National Immigration Forum:

The benefit to immigrant and non-immigrant workers and honest employers is even more important when the economy is hurting. How can you fix the U.S. economy when five percent of the workforce is outside the system, uncovered by minimum wage, OSHA, and other labor laws? How can American workers assert their rights when so many have none? This is why we need reform now.

(Photo: Ricky Flores/The Journal News)