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CHICAGO (CBS) – A group of immigrant day laborers gathered in a park on the Northwest Side this morning, calling for an end to immigration raids.

Orange's Undocumented (Illegal!) Immigrants (Aliens!) Stay a Step Ahead to Steal Work From Americans Based on his youthful looks alone, Luis Martinez Hernandez stood out Wednesday morning among a dozen or so day laborers that stood along Taft Avenue just west of Tustin Street in Orange. The 23-year-old Mexican shot a quick smile. "I just looking for work," he said. He stood next to Hernando Cortez, who said he is "40 maybe", and is looking for anything -- painting, construction work, whatever -- to earn some money. And so continues the saga of Orange's day laborers. Here's hoping they're not...

PHOENIX (AP) -- A federal judge blocked police in Arizona from enforcing a section of the state's 2010 immigration enforcement law that prohibited people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day labor services on streets. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled Wednesday that groups seeking to overturn the law will likely prevail in their claim that the day labor rules violate the First Amendment. The ban was among a handful of provisions in the law that were allowed to take effect after a July 2010 decision by Bolton halted enforcement of other, more controversial elements of the law....

The way Omar Sierra remembers it, dozens of day laborers gathered in the Kmart parking lot that day more than 15 years ago. A county mobile health clinic arrived with a mariachi band and free food and offered HIV tests to those waiting for work. Sierra got in line and sat for his test. He heard a commotion, turned and saw men running. He thought someone was offering a job and wondered whether he should go with them. Then he saw the immigration agents. And he ran as fast as he could. More than a dozen day laborers were arrested...

GALVESTON — Day laborers in League City filed a federal lawsuit Thursday, accusing police of harassment and discrimination aimed at preventing them from seeking employment. The lawsuit filed on behalf of Jornaleros de Las Palmas, a group of about 40 Latino workers, seeks to halt the alleged harassment. The lawsuit also asks the court to declare unconstitutional a state law preventing day laborers from soliciting jobs from the street

Both sides are claiming victory in the $650,000 settlement of a lawsuit brought by a group of day laborers who charged their September 2006 arrests in Danbury, Conn. were unlawful and based on racial profiling. According to Yale Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, which helped represent the men pro bono and issued a press release about the settlement, “This is the largest monetary settlement ever paid out to day laborers by any municipality in the country.” “I have no idea what the basis for that assertion is,” said Dan Casagrande, the lead trial counsel representing the city...

The slogan of the Centreville Immigration Forum (CIF) is "Bringing neighbors together to create a more peaceful community." One way of doing that is by getting day laborers off the streets and into a worker center where they could more easily find jobs."Our mission is broader than just running a worker center," said CIF head Alice Foltz. "It’s to bring together the many, diverse elements that make up Centreville." Currently, though, that center is the group’s main focus, as its members try to come up with the money needed to open it. Al Dwoskin, owner of the Centreville Square Shopping...

An amateur cameraman claims he's got video proof that California Sen. Barbara Boxer's supporters enlisted day laborers to hold signs protesting her Republican opponent. Derek Broes, a supporter of GOP Senate nominee Carly Fiorina, has released a video he shot outside a Pasadena debate that showed two Spanish-speaking men holding a slapdash white sign accusing "corporate cash" of loving the Republican candidate. Though the audio is hard to hear, one of the men clearly says he did not make the sign -- another appears to say a "lady" was paying them to hold it.

(06-09) 17:30 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Cities can prohibit day laborers from soliciting work from passing drivers, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2010%2F06%2F09%2FBAS81DSOQE.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0qQ7MhLzv

SAN FRANCISCO -- Cities can prohibit day laborers from soliciting work from passing drivers, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said an ordinance in Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County) prohibiting anyone on a street or sidewalk from seeking work from motorists, and prohibiting drivers from stopping to offer a job, is a valid safety measure that does not interfere with free speech.The ordinance does not regulate the content of a day laborer's speech, only the location, Judge Sandra Ikuta said in the majority opinion. She said...

(04-24) 15:23 PDT San Francisco, CA (AP) -- Day laborers and domestic workers protested Saturday against an ordinance introduced by Mayor Gavin Newsom last month that would make it illegal to sit or lie on public sidewalks. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/04/24/state/n143325D17.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0m4aY7mBV

CONCORD — A crew of federal officials wandering into a day labor hiring zone used to mean one thing: time to leave. Not the case Thursday morning on Monument Boulevard. Armed with coffee, not handcuffs, investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor chatted warmly with Latino immigrant workers about how to find jobs without being exploited. "We're the feds, but the good ones," said Paul Ramirez, speaking in Spanish inside the Michael Chavez Center, a gathering spot for day laborers. "We're here to help workers." The unprecedented visit was part of a campaign to bring long-established workplace protections to the...

The decision by Herndon's mayor and several Town Council members to protest a Democratic fundraiser last month and a fiery community meeting that followed have ignited a free-speech debate and opened old wounds about the town's tough anti-illegal immigration policies. The hubbub started Sept. 16 in downtown Herndon...Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedettis and council members Dennis D. Husch, William B. Tirrell Sr. and Charlie D. Waddell, Republicans, joined a handful of sign-holding protesters outside a fundraiser where Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) was speaking... Republicans used it as a chance to hold a "tea party" to protest policies of President...

('Cry me a river, illegals denied their RIGHTS!' alert!) For decades, Huffines Plaza in Lewisville (TX) has been an unofficial gathering spot for day laborers. The shopping center, along Interstate 35E near State Highway 121, provides quick and easy access for employers who need an extra hand willing to give a day's work for a day's pay. While this informal employment system seems to have worked for years with few problems, day laborers no longer feel welcome at the plaza, where "no trespassing" signs have been posted recently and police have been asked to start enforcing trespassing laws.

So under the new law, the city will fine any driver who doesn’t pull off and park to hire the workers. The citation is $250 for the first offense, $500 for the second and $1,000 and up to three months in jail for the third.

-snip- Day laborer Wayne Coldiron, 41, turned himself in to Escambia County authorities and Leonard P. Gonzalez Jr., 35, was arrested in neighboring Santa Rosa County, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said. Earlier Sunday, authorities charged Gonzalez's father, Leonard P. Gonzalez Sr., with evidence tampering. Police said the 56-year-old tried to paint over and hide damage on a red van that was spotted on surveillance video leaving the home where Byrd and Melanie Billings were shot to death Thursday. Eight of the couple's children were asleep in the house when the shootings took place. -snip-

Officials from several area restaurants have made citizen's arrests on 27 day laborers at the Home Depot on Gale Avenue in Industry, authorities said Thursday. Officials from businesses near the Home Depot at Gale and Fullerton Road near Rowland Heights recently complained that laborers were urinating in public and harassing customers in the parking lot.

It is not official yet, but you can bet on this happening. Thomas Perez, the current Labor Secretary for the State of Maryland, and former board director for Casa de Maryland, one of the most influential immigrant advocacy organizations in the country, will take over (literally) as the Head of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). According to Wikipedia, CASA de Maryland is to Maryland politics what MoveOn.org is to national politics. CASA is affiliated with the National Council of La Raza, which is the largest Hispanic "civil rights and advocacy organization" in the United State. CASA has...

NEW ORLEANS — They are the men still rebuilding New Orleans more than three years after Hurricane Katrina, the head-down laborers from Honduras, Mexico and Guatemala who work on the blazing hot roofs and inside the fetid homes for a wad of cash at the end of the day. But on the street, these laborers are known as “walking A.T.M.’s.” Their pockets stuffed with bills, the laborers are vulnerable because of language problems and their status as illegal immigrants. And as Hispanics have become the prey of choice in crumbling neighborhoods here in one of America’s most crime-ridden cities, racial...

They are down and out in the United States and homesick for Guatemala. And El Salvador. And Honduras. And Mexico. And they would go back without even an American penny in their pocket if only they had enough to get home. They are the discouraged and disillusioned Central American and Mexican day laborers who, in a sign of how hard times are in this economy, find themselves so broke they can't send much, if any, money back to loved ones they haven't seen for years. "We have lost our reason for being here," laments Jose Perez, 42, a Guatemalan living...