Mam’k Day Laborers Issue: Report

In a court ruling  in 2007, police and other officials in the Village of Mamaroneck were found to have harassed local day laborers,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

primarily Spanish speaking men who gathered daily in Columbus Park or at the train station looking for work.  Three years later, the Village was found to be complying with procedures against harassment set forth in that ruling.

The report of an independent monitor is now available on the Village website. In the report, Vanessa Merton, a Pace University Law Professor, agrees the Village was compliant with the ruling and she found no recent instances of day laborers being harassed.

 John Gitlitz, Chairman of the Hispanic Resource Center of Larchmont and Mamaroneck says, "The political climate in Mamaroneck has changed and is now much more favorable, welcoming, even generous to new immigrants.   We should all be happy that the unfortunate incidents that led to the Monitor’s appointment are now a thing of the past."

The ruling brings the legal chapters of the case to an end. Said Gitlitz,

"How many of us remember the Mamaroneck “riot” of 1870 which pitted the Irish against the Italians?  Yet each group in turn has made its way, become part of the American mainstream and contributed to the cultural vitality that defines Mamaroneck and America."