Governor Carcieri was drubbed again yesterday for his broad crackdown on illegal immigrants. When Colombian-born Patricia Martinez, a high-profile department director, says his executive order was misguided, that should be a wakeup call, no?

But first a glance at Republican Carcieri as he finessed his way through a Crowne Plaza breakfast of Kids Count, the children’s advocacy organization.

Its director, Elizabeth Burke Bryant, was jolted recently when Carcieri called the Head Start pre-school program for poor children a waste of money. He has asked the Democratic legislature to cut $3.3 million in Head Start funds and eliminate 400 slots.

Introducing Carcieri yesterday, the diplomatic Burke Bryant noted that although Kids Count disagrees with his proposal to remove children of undocumented immigrants from the state health-insurance rolls, he has been accessible and works with the organization on other fronts.

Something Carcieri proceeded to say sounded as if maybe he’s seen the light on Head Start. He got a hand as he announced, “I am supportive of early childhood education.” He said he wants better coordination of programs.

When Carcieri finished, Burke Bryant chirped, “I’ll be following up and sitting down with you on Head Start.” There were whoops, cheers and wild applause.

In fact, several of the day’s speakers, including Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts and Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed, also plugged Head Start.

But when I approached Carcieri to ask if he now supports spending the $3.3 million and retaining the 400 Head Start slots, he walked away. And later, John Robitaille, his communications adviser, reported that while there are talks going on with lawmakers on various budget issues, Carcieri as of now “has not made changes to any of his proposed reductions.”

So it was another tough day for anyone hoping for a change in the depressing air that has settled in over Carcieri.

As the breakfast crowd was dispersing, Martinez, who directs the Department of Children, Youth and Families and is one of Rhode Island’s most prominent Latinos, said in interviews that his executive order on immigration “has created a lot of fear,” stirring even further the “distrust” that exists in “communities of color.”

Among other things, she said that, in this climate, youngsters may now be in greater danger: Kids may scapegoat immigrant kids and beat them up with little worry that the victims or their parents will report it.

She said the order can hurt people here legally as well as illegal immigrants, raising suspicions against anyone who looks or sounds different.

Good for Martinez. I hope Carcieri and legislators think about what she says — and also about breakfast remarks by Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin. I disagree with him on some issues, such as abortion rights, but, overall, yesterday he was right on:

“We dare not ignore the cries of our brothers and sisters … We should listen in a very special way to the voices of children who need us; the voices of unborn children crying for protection, because those kids count, too; the voices of immigrant children who are simply crying for acceptance and for the chance to make a new beginning; to the voices of homeless children who need some place safe and warm to sleep, to the voices of children who look to us for health care and educational opportunity…

“If we do our best, God will do the rest. But if we don’t at least try, then God forgive us all.”

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal’s political columnist.

mbakst@projo.com