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I wrote in a column earlier this month that Rep. Pricey Harrison had gotten some push-back on her legislative stance regarding illegal immigration:

(Harrison has) taken the most heat over a bill she did play a part in drafting. It would prevent community colleges or state universities from asking about a person's immigration status, overruling a decision by the community college system this year.

"I'm getting pretty ugly e-mails and probably some phone calls on that," she said. A couple of writers have suggested "your days are numbered," but she didn't take that as a death threat but more of a promise to find political opposition in an upcoming election — no one has filed to run against her this year.

"More of them are like, 'What part of illegal don't you understand?' or, 'Go back to Mexico,'" she said. "But pretty ugly."

More on that bill here.

More of that push-back is coming to the General Assembly on Wednesday, when ALI-PAC and related groups are due to hold a rally. From an e-mail sent to us scruffy media types:

On Wednesday, June 18, 2008 a historic coalition of immigration enforcement and border security groups will converge on the NC Legislature, to ask for emergency legislation to stem the tide of illegal aliens into North Carolina.

Each group participating is focused on a different aspect of illegal immigration and each group is multi-ethnic and inclusive meeting ALI-PAC's standards of working with only non-racist and non-violent groups.

The following leaders are available for interview, before June 18th by phone. Also available on the first floor of the Legislative Bldg. and at the rally on the bicentennial Mall, across from the Jones St. entrance to the Legislative Bldg, between 11 and 1 on June 18.

More here. Other immigration-focused groups like the Minuteman and some think-tank types like Civitas will also be on hand. I would be surprised if at least a few legislators did not speak as well.

I was interviewing William Gheen for a related but different story last week and he mentioned the legislative lobby day.

He said that the rally had two big objectives:

• * Shut down the bill sponsored by Harrison and company.

• * Push the legislature to amend the budget so that no state resources go to people here illegally.

"Close to 80 percent of the public feels that no taxpayer resources should be going to illegal aliens," Gheen said. "We want to make sure the lawmakers understand this is a crisis situation because of the South Carolina crackdown."

More regarding the South Carolina situation is here, although the gist of the measure seems to be that it makes work harder to come by for those here illegally.

Gheen also said that the state should stop funding El Pueblo, a nonprofit group that does community building in the Latino community. The group gets grants to do various types of outreach work.

But it also has a lobbying arm. Gheen argues the group shouldn't lobby while it receives state funding. This is a point, he said, his group will make when lobbying on Wednesday.

This is not a new charge. The group responded to a similar statement back in 2007. (PDF)

I asked Irene Godinez, El Pueblo's advocacy director, whether her group would be on site Wednesday to provide any sort of counter-argument.

"We're trying not to engage with that particular group," she said of ALI-PAC. "The more we can do to avoid engaging them, the better off we will be."

This may, in fact, be a situation where El Pueblo and other immigrant advocacy groups are better off not getting into the argument. The legislature as been reluctant in recent years to move either way on the status quo regarding immigration. So while Wednesday's rally is likely to be noisy and will get a lot of attention, recent history casts some doubt on whether it will cause much movement on the issues ALI-PAC is bringing to the forefront.

More to come later this week.