The tide against the use of “illegal immigrant” has been swelling for weeks. Now, a giant wave of protest is about to come crashing down on the New York Times. Tomorrow at 12:00 pm, a group of activists led by Fernando Chavez and Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas, will protest in front of the Times building, demanding that the paper stop using “illegal immigrant.”

The group will have with it a petition from the Applied Research Center’s “Drop the I-Word” campaign featuring over 70,000 signatures that support the mission.

After the Associated Press announced it would no longer use “illegal immigrant,” the Times’ public editor wrote that the paper was considering dropping the phrase. Maybe this protest will make them act a little faster.

Yet another interesting aspect of the Jose Antonio Vargas story emerged today. According to a Patch in Mountain View, California, Vargas confessed his secret about six weeks ago to a room full of student journalists for the Mountain View High School paper The Oracle.

Vargas aparently asked them to keep it a secret, which they gladly did:

Behind the closed-door of room 415, the fluorescent white lights and a complete hush filled the room. The unexpected disclosure of the information, [Kenneth] Troxell [Assistant Editor at The Oracle] acknowledged, instantly bonded them with Vargas.

‘I think that especially because he was an Oracle and he went to MVHS, we felt camaraderie for him,’ Troxell said, who met Vargas for the first time that day. ‘Oracle is a tight knit group and we are all friends. He’s a friend and an Oracle, and that was the reason we wanted to keep his secret.’

It’s a touching story. These kids, who might have had the scoop of their early careers on their hands, decided to wait out of respect for the person involved. Makes you wonder how many adult journalists would do the same thing.

Yesterday FishbowlNY told you about the fascinating revelation by Jose Antonio Vargas that he was an illegal immigrant. We also mentioned that a piece by Vargas would be published in the upcoming New York Times Magazine, and as the day went on, we found out that The Washington Post had passed on the story.

It was a puzzling decision, especially since it’s such an interesting tale and Vargas had won a Pulitzer for his work at the Post. Today, we get some insight into why, exactly, the paper let Vargas’ story go to another outlet. Apparently the piece was all set to run in the Post’s Outlook section, when concerns over some facts in Vargas’ article arose:

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Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, has told ABC News that he is an illegal immigrant. Vargas has decided to unveil this secret because he hopes that the spotlight that will inevitably follow him will lead to Congress passing the DREAM act, a bill that would allow immigrant children to become citizens if they go to college or serve in the military.

Vargas’ success makes his confession that much more powerful. He won a Pulitzer for his coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings for The Washington Post and at one point got the elusive Mark Zuckerberg to agree to an interview. Despite all of that, his citizenship status weighed heavily on him:

I wasn’t supposed to be there. I wasn’t supposed to be walking with Mark Zuckerberg. I wasn’t supposed to be interviewing Romney’s sons. Why was I doing it? Because I wanted to survive. I wanted to live. I wanted to earn what it means to be an American.

Vargas’ story is one that needs to be highlighted. It helps erase the stereotype that proponents of anti-immigration laws push.

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WebNewser: The Huffington Post launched its new technology section today. It’s being edited by former Washington Post national reporter Jose Antonio Vargas.

TVNewser: CNBC canceled former Forbes managing editor Dennis Kneale‘s “CNBC Reports,” but he’ll still anchor the network’s “Power Lunch.”

Toledo Blade: President Barack Obama said he would be open to a possible newspaper bailout bill. “I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” he told reporters from The Toledo Blade and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The New York Times: Atlantic.com blogger Andrew Sullivan asked readers to subscribe to the print version of The Atlantic and it worked. “Within two days after last Monday’s post, Mr. Sullivan’s appeal pulled in 75 percent of the subscriptions that the Web site draws in a typical month…The Atlantic expects this month’s subscription orders to be double an average month’s.”

Associated Press: The New York Times Co. has corrected some errors in an SEC filing relating to stock options granted to CEO Janet Robinson and Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

WebNewser: The Washington Post‘s national reporter Jose Antonio Vargas joined The Huffington Post as technology and innovations editor.

TVNewser: Former Fox News producer Aaron Bruns was sentenced to 10 years in prison today for possession of child pornography.

FishbowlLA: Penthouse celebrates its 40th anniversary with a collector’s edition mag.

Altangeles: Dennis Romero, a former writer for Entrepreneur magazine, has the final word.