House narrowly OKs E-Verify

By JIM BARON - The Times - May 13, 2009

Originally published on The Times (www.pawtuckettimes.com)

PROVIDENCE - On a 38-33 vote, the House of Representatives once again passed legislation that would require all employers in the state to check the immigration status of new employees to ensure they are eligible to work.

This is the third time the House has passed the measure, called E-Verify, although its margin of victory this year was slimmer than last year's 53-17, but it has died in the Senate in each of the last two years without even getting a vote in committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear an identical version of the bill, which enforces the work restrictions in immigration law, on Thursday.

Woonsocket Rep. Jon Brien, who has championed the bill. in the House for each of the last three years said the idea is to establish the state as "a beachhead in New England and the Mid-Atlantic States so that the illegal immigrant population knows that in Rhode Island, we check for work eligibility. Ultimately, what that will do - and it has been proven around the country - is that illegals won't take jobs in that state if they know that they check.

"We're not going to stop unscrupulous employers" who often hire illegals at less than minimum wage with no benefits, Brien told reporters after the vote, "but it's better to have half a loaf than none at all.

The tiny House Republican caucus, usually inconsequential in the chamber because of its small size and minority viewpoint, actually provided the margin of victory in Tuesday's vote with all six of its members voting as a bloc in favor of the controversial bill that split the Democrats down the middle. Thirty-three Democrats voted against E-Verify while only 32 supported it.

The hot-button issue divided legislators not only within the Democratic Party, but within communities as well. Woonsocket's Brien and Lisa Baldelli-Hunt voted with the yeas, but Christopher Fierro was among the nays. In Central Falls, which also has a significant immigrant population, Rep. Agostinho Silva voted no, but Rep. Kenneth Vaudreuil, whose district includes part of the Valley Falls section of Cumberland voted yes. Cumberland Democrat Karen MacBeth also voted yes.

Pawtucket Reps. Peter Kilmartin and Elaine Coderre voted yes, while Reps. Elizabeth Dennigan and J. Patrick O'Neill voted no. (Rep. William San Bento was absent.) In Lincoln, Reps. Rene Menard and Mary Ann Shallcross Smith voted yes but Rep. Peter Petrarca voted no. Republican Brian Newberry of North Smithfield voted yes but Burrillville Democrat Edwin Pacheco voted no.

Terry Gorman, executive director of RIILE (Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement) pronounced himself "tickled to death," by Tuesday's outcome, but admitted "I had palpitations up there" in the House Visitors Gallery during the nearly 90-minute debate.

Gorman noted that one of the key points during the debate was that E-Verify would be a burden on small businesses and is opposed by the various chambers of commerce in the state. "Why are they against E-Verify?" he asked rhetorically. "In my opinion, the only people who are affected by E-Verify are the people who are here illegally, ineligible to work, and the people who hire them. It's no more difficult than that.

North Providence Rep. Arthur Corvese, chairman of the House Labor Committee that approved the bill last month, told his colleagues, "The issue of illegal immigration should be addressed by the federal government. The federal government has done less than what the people of this country and this state would like to see. Therefore it falls on our shoulders to do what we can, legally, within he borders of our state. E-Verify is probably one of the most innocuous things we can do to show our constituents and the people of the state of Rhode Island that we want to take a stand against illegal immigration, not legal immigration, illegal immigration.

Rep. David Segal disputed the claim that the immigrant forebears of today's citizens came here by legal means through the immigration process.

"There were hundreds of thousands or millions of immigrants who came here without papers," he said. "If your parents or grandparents came here before the 1920s, they could not have come here illegally because there were no restrictions on immigration from the west. People put these laws in place for the first time because they did not like people with names like Pacheco or Ferri or Segal, swarthy dimwits that we were. Quite simply, in passing this legislation we are upholding and strengthening the legacies of those who first restricted immigration and they did it because they didn't like people like us. They didn't like our parents, they didn't like our grandparents and I am not willing to do that."

Rep. Peter Palumbo of Cranston, who has introduced many anti-illegal immigration bills himself in past years, said illegal immigration is costing Rhode Island between $156 million to $200 million in taxes. "That's a lot of money, ladies and gentlemen, especially now, the way the economic situation is and the deficit we are facing."

Palumbo denied that E-Verify would represent a burden on small businesses. "What is hurting small businesses is the fees and taxes we are putting on them. Not the fact that they have to check a few Social Security numbers to make sure (employees) are here legally."

Rep. Charlene Lima of Cranston urged lawmakers to let the Obama administration have an opportunity to address the problem before the state takes its own steps.

"Look at the flag, it's the United States of America," Lima said. "We have opened our arms and we have embraced people from all over the world. That is what the best thing about this country is. Let's come up with a procedure to address this so these people can come here legally. Right now what we are doing is feel-good legislation politicizing a very, very sensitive issue where we are hurting relationships with a lot of different people."

In response, Warwick Rep. Joseph Trillo said, "there are people in this room who would embrace all people in the world and basically say tear down our borders, let anyone who wants to come here come here and we'll do the best to take care of them. We can't afford to be giving away jobs, I don't care what level they are, to people who don't belong in the country."

After Brien gave a lengthy explanation of the bill, House Republican Leader Robert Watson joked that "17 million aliens snuck over the border in the time it took him to describe the bill."

But the question, Watson said, is "how quickly is this going to be killed in the Senate?"

Watson urged House Speaker William Murphy to "stand behind this bill" in negotiations with the Senate so that it can become law.

"In a perfect world, if we had clean hands, I can see why I would vote for this," Richmond Rep. Rodney Driver said, "but this is not that case. We spend billions, not millions, billions in Latin America overthrowing governments, interfering with their elections, funding right wing dictators and the death toll due to our graduates of the (CIA-run) School for the Americas as it is called is not hundreds, not thousands, it's hundreds of thousands. So how can we tell people it is illegal to come here?"