http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3297205

Aug. 4, 2005, 9:21PM

Immigrants clash with locals on Long Island
Hispanics have been harassed, beaten, evicted in recent incidents
By FRANK ELTMAN
Associated Press

FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. - This middle-class Long Island community an hour from New York City and 2,000 miles from the Mexican border has become an unlikely flashpoint in the national debate over illegal immigration, with Hispanics beaten, harassed and evicted in recent weeks.

For more than a decade, immigrants from Mexico or Central America have been drawn to Long Island by the prospect of jobs. Many stand on street corners in Farmingville, waiting for contractors, landscapers and others to offer them a day's work at about $10 an hour. Then at night they go back to their illegally crowded single-family homes.

The immigrants, many of whom are thought to have entered the country illegally, have been a source of tension among longtime residents since at least the late 1990s, but things have gotten worse this summer â€â€