There’s a long, long history of debate over what to do about day laborers congregating along Brewster’s Main Street. The current mayor says he’d be in favor of designating a specific hiring site somewhere in the village (as Mount Kisco, Ossining, Port Chester and other communities have done), but he opposes the use of taxpayer money to create one.

The latest little development in this saga comes from officials in the surrounding town of Southeast, where Supervisor Michael Rights and Councilman Dwight Yee ran on a platform of fighting problems they attribute to illegal immigration and day labor. After proposing an all-out sidewalk hiring ban, they pared that down to a resolution to put up a no-trespass sign at 1 Main St., across from the Metro-North station. Yee had said, “I want to at least chase them away from this little oasis and protect the town properties in the village.”

The resolution failed, 3-2, because of civil rights concerns on the town board, Marcela Rojas reports.

Journal News reporters Shawn Cohen and Jonathan Bandler have been chasing the story about the Libyan leader’s search for accommodations in the NYC area — specifically, on Donald Trump’s estate in Bedford. The latest: Bedford is issuing a stop-work order on construction of a Bedouin-style tent at the estate. Officials said they should have had a permit.

At the estate’s entrance, photographer Seth Harrison encountered a smaller tent and two men who identified themselves as Libyan security agents. He took this photo before being asked to turn over his camera.

Here’s the story just posted on LoHud.com:

BEDFORD — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi arranged to use Donald Trump’s estate for this week’s General Assembly visit, but the town late today issued a stop work order on a Bedouin-style tent because no permits were sought for the temporary residence.

Town Attorney Joel Sachs said building inspector Richard Megna found workers constructing the tent and placing small satellite dishes on the Seven Springs estate this afternoon. He said Megna could not communicate with them because they did not speak English, and the stop work order was given to the property’s carertaker.

A source in law enforcement said the Libyan leader was not yet at the property, and that it was uncertain whether he would actually stay there.

The property straddles the borders of three towns, Bedford, North Castle and New Castle. North Castle Town Supervisor Reese Berman said she called Trump this afternoon and he told her that he had rented the property to partners of his in the Middle East, not directly to Gadhafi, and was looking into the dictator’s connection.

She said she believed the tent was being put up on the Bedford portion of the property.

In Bedford, town police Sgt. Thomas Diebold told The Journal News he couldn’t discuss Gadhafi’s arrangements. “We were notified by the Secret Service earlier this morning,” he said. “We have no comment on it from our end.” He referred media inquiries to the U.S. Secret Service, which did not immediately return calls.

Attempts to reach the Trump organization and the Libyan Mission to the United Nations were not successful this afternoon.

The town has set up No Parking signs this afternoon on Oregon Road, near the Trump estate. A private security guard who would not identify who he worked for temporarily blocked a Journal News reporter and photographer from leaving the area with his limousine this afternoon. He tried to extort the photographer to hand over his camera so the two journalists would be allowed to leave.

Click here for the rest of the story.

The Neighbors Link community center in Mount Kisco — home to a hiring center, language classes and many other programs — is once again holding a trio of fall fund-raisers around the theme of cultural connection. On Tuesday night (Sept. 22), the “Latin Links” campaign begins with a showing of the movie “La Americana” at Jacob Burns Film Center. Director Nicholas Bruckman will discuss the film with Carola Otero Bracco of Neighbor’s Link.

The other two events:

Oct. 8: A conversation with Camilo Jose Vergara, award-winning Chilean-born photojournalist, and historian Kenneth T. Jackson.

Oct. 23: Concert featuring Argentina-born Norberto Goldberg, percussionist, and his group Amazon, which performs Latin and Brazilian jazz.

There’s more info at Neighbors Link. Here’s a video explaining the center’s purpose.

Rep. Joe “You lie!” Wilson was formally scolded by fellow House members today for his “breach of decorum” during President Obama’s health care speech last week. But while the civility issue continues to get lots of press, the “truthiness” factor gets much less attention.

There are many complicated questions surrounding the health care reform bills, but the one that the South Carolina congressman fixated on — whether illegal immigrants would benefit — appears to be one of the simpler ones. Answer: No, they wouldn’t.

PolitiFact.org and other reliable sources had already debunked the myth that illegal immigrants would receive any benefit from the proposed bills. (Further evidence comes from immigrant advocates who are unhappy with these provisions.)

But as a policy analyst once told me, the immigration debate is a fact-free zone. Many people are convinced that illegal immigrants receive government services across the board.

The National Immigration Law Center publishes a detailed guide showing which federal programs immigrants are eligible for, depending on their legal status, refugee status, nation of origin, age, date of entry and about a million other things. (Click here and scroll to “Overview: Immigrant Eligibility for Federal Programs).

It’s a complex chart, but what’s clear is that most benefits are off-limits to the undocumented. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for SSI, food stamps, welfare (TANF), full-scope Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security or public housing. The one thing all immigrants do qualify for is Emergency Medicaid, including labor and delivery.

Legal immigrants also face limits on their eligibility for services, particularly if they came in after Aug. 22, 1996, when the rules changed.

Organizations like FAIR criticize the extension of services to U.S.-citizen children of undocumented immigrants. Other groups have tried to calculate the overall costs and benefits of illegal immigration, or call attention to the uneven impact of the costs.

There is plenty of room for discussion on those issues, but when it comes to immigration, unfortunately, even the simplest facts get lost in the discussion.

Historian and North Salem resident John Steele Gordon will host a series of book discussions on “Immigration and the Idea of America” at the Ruth Keeler Memorial Library in North Salem.
The New York Council for the Humanities awarded the library another grant as part of their “Reading Between the Lines” program. Gordon will lead a four-part discussion series on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. starting at the end of the month. The schedule is as follows:
Sept 24th – The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Oct. 15th – Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

Nov. 5th – The Transplanted by John Bodnar

Dec. 3rd – A Different Mirror by Takaki

Contact the library to register for the series and to receive the books.

Steve Lieberman gathered some community reaction to yesterday’s hate-crime charge in Rockland. The suspect in this BB gun attack, Michael Conklin, was out on bail, facing charges in another hate-crime assault in April. Police said he wore a shirt with KKK and Nazi symbols in the BB attack Monday night.

In today’s Journal News story, one immigrant advocate draws a connection between these incidents and the efforts by Suffern village police to work more closely with ICE. The teen-agers accused in the earlier assault were mostly from Suffern, and both hate-crime incidents occurred in the surrounding town of Ramapo. (For the record, Ramapo’s police chief spoke out against the ICE program known as 287(g), saying such efforts hamper crime-solving and community policing.)

Lieberman reports today:

In April, Conklin and four other young men were arrested on a felony assault charge as a hate crime.

The arrests came several days after they were accused of shouting “white power” while beating up a Hispanic male hanging out with them and other people in woods near the municipal water tower in Sloatsburg in late March.

Conklin, Benjamin Knowles and Michael Lorelli, both 17 and of Suffern, Michael Polloni, 17, of Sloatsburg and Andrew Statham, 18, of Suffern were charged by Ramapo police with one count each of second-degree assault as a hate crime.

…. Juan Pablo Ramirez of the Jornaleros Project said he didn’t believe it was a coincidence that the attacks and the people involved were in the western Ramapo area.

He noted the Suffern police and the government have gotten involved in immigration enforcement with the federal government.

He said singling out Hispanics for immigration checks – whether they are illegally or legally in the country – sends a negative stereotype that young people pick up on.

“Young people look to people in authority and this divisive talk and policies bring a backlash against immigrants,” Ramirez said.

Suffern officials have said they joined the program in order to focus on illegal immigrants who are serious criminal offenders. They say the program would be a tool to help keep the village’s crime level low.

Ramirez said the hate symbols raised more concern.

“When people start wearing a KKK shirt and swastika, this shows something deeper,” he said. “I hope it’s just him and not a group of people.”

He said these incidents should bring people together to discuss issues of accepting people regardless of race, creed or religion.

Racial incidents such as these cannot be tolerated, said Renold Julien, the leader of the Haitian advocacy group Konbit Neg Lakay and the Rockland Immigration Coalition.

“We are against this behavior and such violence,” Julien said. “I don’t know kids who wear KKK on shirts. This one youngster needs help. I don’t know if sending him to jail would be fair. I am hoping local agencies that work with young people will get involved.”

Reporter Steve Lieberman has this story today from Rockland County:

AIRMONT – An 18-year-old Montebello man wearing a shirt with racist insignias has been charged with a second hate crime since April involving an attack on a Hispanic male, authorities said today. Ramapo police accused Michael Conklin of shooting a 17-year-old Hispanic man three times with a BB gun at 10:45 p.m. Monday on Cragmere Road.

Conklin wore a “shirt with a Ku Klux Klan insignia on the back and a (Nazi) swastika on the arm,” District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said today.

In April, Conklin and four other young men were each charged with a felony assault count as a hate crime after being accused of shouting “white power” while beating up a Hispanic male in the woods in Sloatsburg.

That case is pending in court and should be resolved within a week, Zugibe said.

On Monday, Conklin is accused of shooting the Hispanic teenager twice in the left forearm and once in the buttocks, Ramapo Detective Sgt. John Lynch said today. The teen’s wounds were not serious.

Conklin was being held today in the county jail on $75,000 bail on one count of second-degree assault and a single count of second-degree assault as a hate crime.

Police had been looking for Conklin on a misdemeanor charge of second-degree criminal trespass involving an incident that occurred Aug. 11 at a home on Laura Drive in Airmont, Lynch said.

Read more about this story tomorrow in The Journal News.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s report on anti-Latino hate crimes on Long Island — and its assertion that local politicians had fanned the flames — prompted one politician’s son to speak out.

Elie Mystal, the son of a former county legislator of the same name, has an interesting post on Long Island Wins regarding his father’s 2007 comment on day laborers: “If I’m living in a neighborhood and people are gathering like that, I would load my gun and start shooting, period. Nobody will say it, but I’m going to say it.”

The younger Mystal reiterates his father’s claim that he was joking, but also describes local pols as being in a predicament when it comes to calling out racists. He acknowledges that they play on people’s fears.

Why? Well, have you ever tried to say, “You have an unenlightened and borderline racist distrust of Latinos, but I appreciate your check….

The middle class suburban voters (of all races) have a point here as well. When you look at these well manicured suburban communities … you can understand how groups of grown men walking up and down the road would freak some people out. You’d like those lucky enough to own homes to offer them a glass of lemonade. But this is America and it’s not entirely surprising when they call the cops.

Meanwhile the hate-crime stories continue on Long Island, where Newsday has a web page on the topic. There was a twist in an incident that happened to coincide with the SPLC’s report, when hate-filled notes were left in a Latino church. The suspect, who is Latino, is charged with a hate crime targeting religious practice, according to police.

A wide-ranging survey asked immigrants about their satisfaction with life in the United States in May. The headline seems to be that despite the recession, immigrants are still happy here, but less extremely happy than they were a few years ago.

Click here for the summary or read through the individual questions from the poll of 1,100 foreign-born people by Public Agenda, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Almost half those polled, 46 percent, were U.S. citizens, 35 percent were legal residents and 15 percent were undocumented. The answers were generally compiled by region of birth rather than legal status.

The poll found that 87 percent of the foreign-born are happy with life in the U.S., but the number who are “extremely happy” fell from 55 percent to 34 percent since 2002. Seventy-one percent plan to stay in the United States permanently and would do it all over again. That’s a 9-point decline from 2002.

Another set of questions dealt with immigration reform. Some 72 percent said the government should offer a path to citizenship (a way for illegal immigrants with no criminal record and who have shown a commitment to the United States to become citizens). The idea is more popular with Mexicans (84 percent) than Middle Easterners (62 percent), East Asians (54 percent) and South Asians (48 percent). Support also declines as people grow older.

One detail that surprised me: Among the U.S. citizens who were polled, fully a third said they were also citizens of another country.

Immigrants were also asked whether their kids would want to live in their home country; South Asians were the most optimistic about that. East Asians gave it the lowest odds.

Here’s another question that kind of boils it down. Seventy-six percent of immigrants agreed that “The United States is a unique country that stands for something special in the world.”

Twenty percent of immigrants agreed with, “The United States is just another country that is no better or worse than any other.” And another 3 percent don’t know.

Two Southeast Town Board candidates were angered by allegations that their party line was likened to the Ku Klux Klan and called for the removal of a recently-appointed Architectural Review Board member.

Matthew Neuringer and Joseph DePaola said they were deeply offended by Lynne Eckardt’s comments concerning their Save our Southeast party line. Last month, Eckardt posted online her thoughts concerning a contractor law the Town Board is reviewing that would crack down on illegal hiring in the town. Her statement: “Why else do you suppose the SOS logo is still the symbol of choice? Probably because KKK was already taken.”

Neuringer and DePaola said the comments insulted them and their families and are asking the Town Board to consider removing her from the ARB. Neuringer said he is of Jewish and Puerto Rican descent and DePaola said he is a practicing Roman Catholic with Italian roots.

To read more about the story, check it out here.

Interestingly, one commentator on the story noted that the “KKK has been dead for years,” which piqued my curiosity.

A little historical research on the group shows that they formed in Tennessee in 1865 following the Civil War. Presently, the KKK is not one organization but includes several small chapters throughout the country. There are an estimated 5,000 members spread across more than 100 chapters, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The League says issues involving gay marriage and immigration have recently fueled KKK activity.