At a Sept. 17 morning meeting on Yonkers Avenue where hundreds of day laborers congregate, Yonkers police officials warned day laborers not to accept jobs with contractors who are going to Rye. Roger Jara, a day laborer leader in Yonkers, said today that police warned them not to go to Rye because police in that community are collaborating with immigration enforcement officials and detaining illegal immigrants. Yonkers police met with day laborers on Sept. 17 to discuss residents’ complaints about day laborers harassing young women and workers’ complaints that some contractors have not paid them their wages.

Nearly 10 percent of the Hispanic adults in a survey by the Pew Hispanic Center say they have been stopped by police or other authorities who asked them about their immigration status. The Pew Hispanic Center released results yesterday of its recent survey of 2,015 Hispanic adults. About eight percent of respondents who are U.S. citizens and 10 percent of Hispanic immigrant respondents said they have been stopped and asked about their immigration status by police or other authorities. Other survey responses indicated that half of respondents said that the situation of Hispanics in the United States is worse now than it was a year ago and 57 percent worry that they or a family member or friend will be deported. Click here to see the full report.

For the past few days I’ve been covering the death of a Guatemalan man whose body was found early Tuesday morning in his backyard. Police confirmed the identification of Emilio DeJesus Ramirez-Buezo yesterday.

We already knew the name on Tuesday after I interviewed Buezo’s brother, Alvaro Buezo. Buezo was nervous about talking to me because he said that police did not want him talking to anyone since it may impede the investigation. I still managed to get some details from Buezo about his older brother’s life and death.

Alvaro said he observed Emilio the morning he was found—before police were called—and noticed bruises and blood coming from his mouth. He also said that his brother was wearing  shorts, T-shirt and one sock. Other people we spoke with yesterday said Emilio was actually wearing boxer shorts.  Either way, Alvaro was hesitant to say whether he thought his brother had been killed, because he said he didn’t know what people looked like when they died.

The cops yesterday explained the bruising as postmortem lividity. The term means discoloration of the skin after death. The chief of police also said it was “his understanding” that there was no blood coming from Emilio’s mouth. The explanations came after Mount Kisco police released a statement saying that an autopsy on Emilio conducted by the Westchester County Medical Examiner showed no evidence of foul play as the cause of his death. A call to the Westchester ME for confirmation was referred back to the Mount Kisco Police Department.

The case remains open. A cause of death has not been determined on the 37-year-old man. We did hear from community members that he was a heavy drinker. Maybe he drank too much that night? Maybe he choked on his own vomit? I would think though that the ME would have noted the latter.

I guess we will have to wait for toxicology reports for a clearer picture of what may have happened that night. For more on this story, check it out here.

A local food and clothing drive is under way for Haiti, and the organizers are hoping to fill up a C-5 cargo plane with supplies by the end of the month. There are a number of dropoff points around Rockland County, including Konbit Neg Lakay in Spring Valley.

For more information call Konbit Neg Lakay, (845) 425-4623.

Below is a story about the effort by reporter Suzan Clarke.

St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, a Yonkers parish with a large Hispanic immigrant congregation, will hold its autumn benefit concert on Sunday, Sept. 21 at 3 p.m. The church’s five Spanish-language choirs will perform and tickets are $5. The concert will be held in the basement and food and beverages will be served. Call 914-963-0822.

During a tour this morning of the Yonkers Public Schools’ new Vive school at 75 Riverdale Ave. schools Superintendent Bernard Pierorazio explained that the Yonkers Pathways to Success, an adult education program based at Vive, has received support from the Mexican consulate. Pierorazio explained that the Mexican government has given the district books and other materials.
“The goal is to have Mexican nationals assimilate into the community,” Pierorazio said.
The district’s evening adult education programs begin on Sept. 17 at the Enrico Fermi school at 27 Poplar St. and at the PEARLS Hawthorne school at 350 Hawthorne Ave. The Fermi school will focus exclusively on English as a Second Language classes, while PEARLS will offer computing, English, GED, pre-GED classes and basic adult education. Day adult education begins in October at Vive. For more information or registration, call 914-376-8600.

Muñoz made the comment during a conference call with reporters about Sen. John McCain’s new Spanish-language ad, which claims that Sen. Barack Obama got in the way of immigration reform last year. Muñoz said Hispanics watched the reform debate closely last year and will recall that it was the Republicans, and not the Democrats, who defeated the bill.

Both McCain and Obama have a record of supporting comprehensive immigration reform (meaning an overhaul that would include legalization for the undocumented). Frank Sharry of America’s Voice said today he’s become less optimistic that McCain would follow through with that position as president; that his “enforcement first” approach may ultimately mean “enforcement only.” After all, Sharry said, the current crackdown doesn’t seem to be selling hard-liners on the notion of legalization. Instead, hard liners are celebrating. He likened the strategy to “giving an alcoholic a drink and hoping they want to get sober tomorrow.”

In case you missed it, here is a copy of a story that ran in our paper on Saturday.

Mt. Vernon woman convicted in immigration fraud
BY TIMOTHY O’CONNOR • THE JOURNAL NEWS • SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

NEW YORK – A Mount Vernon woman faces up to 10 years in a federal prison after pleading guilty in an immigration fraud case.

Jennifer Rowe, 51, admitted she conspired to commit mail fraud and visa fraud. She pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Rowe was charged in September 2007 along with Pape Seck with defrauding illegal immigrants who paid up to $5,000 hoping to gain permanent residency and citizenship. While Rowe pleaded guilty yesterday, Seck remains a fugitive.

Reached at her home last night, Rowe said Seck was to blame.

“It wasn’t my fault that this happened,” she said. “It was because of this man who took off with these people’s money and left me in the wind.”

Federal prosecutors said Rowe and Seck duped the illegal immigrants into thinking they were eligible for amnesty under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1986. Rowe advertised in immigrant communities in the New York City area. The ads promised she could help immigrants obtain permanent residency. But the illegal immigrants were not eligible for the amnesty program.

Rowe and Seck took fees of $1,000 to $5,000 and the immigrants’ passports. They then submitted false application packages for amnesty to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency on behalf of the immigrants, federal authorities said. None of the applications were successful.

When Seck took off, the angry clients came after Rowe. She said that’s what led to her prosecution.

“These people are blaming me because they are furious,” she said, “because he ran away and I had given them my address, my telephone number.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who arrested Rowe said she told them that Seck called her about a month previously to tell her he had $100,000 and passports to return to her. But she said she never heard from him again.

Rowe is to be sentenced Jan. 6 by U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty.

“It’s something I never wanted to be,” she said, “this shame, this disgrace.”

The Republican “poison pill” claim is back, and I expect we’ll hear more of it. A new Spanish-language ad for John McCain claims that his opponent blocked immigration reform in Congress by voting for poison-pill amendments. The Miami Herald did a fact check and is calling for a 5-yard penalty against McCain-Palin. Here’s the ad:

Barack Obama did support some pro-labor measures that came up during the final debate over last year’s “grand bargain” in Congress. But pro-reform advocates like Christopher Dorval and Frank Sharry of America’s Voice agree that it wasn’t the labor amendments that killed the deal. It was the hard-line Republican opposition to legalizing undocumented immigrants.

In any case, it must be said that McCain has retreated somewhat from his pro-legalization stance, and that the Republican platform is flat-out opposed to a legalization measure. The immigration issue hasn’t won any real attention yet in the McCain-Obama contest, but we’ll be listening.

Update: From Frank Sharry comes this comment:

We are stunned.  A Spanish-language ad approved by Senator John McCain accuses Senator Obama and the Democrats of derailing immigration reform?  He knows better.  The whole political world knows better.  Comprehensive immigration reform was blocked not by Democrats but by Republicans.  A White House strategy designed to secure 25-30 Republican votes (of the 60 needed) ended up getting only 12 Republican votes.  The reason?  A number of Republican Senators were intimidated by the intense opposition to the bill fueled by anti-immigrant groups, hard line Republicans and right-wing talk radio and television. … Immigrants and Latinos are intelligent.  They know the difference between fact and fiction. This ad is more fiction than fact, and the McCain campaign should take this ad off the air.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez expelled the U.S. Ambassador yesterday, giving him 72 hours to leave the country. The move was made to support Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, who also kicked out their U.S. Ambassador this week after claiming he instigated protests there.

With that said, the shakeup in Venezuela comes when a local politically-involved figure is heading to the South American nation next week. Darren Rigger, chairman of the Peekskill Democratic City Committee, was selected by the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) to serve as a delegate to Venezuela for a 10-day political exchange program. Rigger will join six other people from across the country to learn about Venezuela’s political system and its relations with the U.S. Rigger had this to say:

I am honored to have been selected to participate in this ACYPL exchange to Venezuela. This will be an excellent opportunity for me to learn about the current political and social dynamics there and help the Venezuelan people better understand the United States.