NEW YORK - The New York Civil Liberties Union will join community organizations, immigrant rights groups and officials tomorrow in a public hearing on the occasion of the visit by Jorge Bustamante, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, to the New York area.

Bustamante's visit to the United States marks the first broad-based international inquiry of its kind into human rights abuses against migrants in the US. Bustamante is an independent expert appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council with the mandate to monitor, advise and publicly report on human rights violations in specific countries and worldwide. In addition to attending private meetings and tomorrow's public hearing in New York, Bustamante will visit the Monmouth County immigrant detention facility in New Jersey.

NYCLU Legislative Counsel Udi Ofer will testify at the hearing about the proliferation of local anti-immigrant ordinances across the country and their impact on immigrant families.

"Local governments are not empowered to make immigration law," Ofer said. "By doing so they overstep their authority and engender anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiment."

The Special Rapporteur will also hear testimony on the rights of migrant workers, the effects of deportation and detention policies on migrants and their families, the impact of the post-9/11 backlash against migrants, and local anti-immigrant ordinances.