In March 2017 the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union drafted a model ordinance that would reject local police cooperation with a federal program that essentially deputizes local police departments to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The ACLU invited Rhode Island communities, where an estimated 26,666 people live without legal documentation, to consider the ordinance.
South Kingstown quickly moved to adopt a version of the ordinance in October 2017. But no other Rhode Island community has done so since, despite often strong verbal opposition from political leaders, including Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, to President Donald Trump’s hardline approach to enforcing immigration laws.
A year and a half after the Trump administration created shockwaves in so-called sanctuary cities such as Providence by ramping up federal deportation efforts, Rhode Island, like much of the country, is hardly united in support of its undocumented residents.
That’s because Trump’s polarizing campaign and election in 2016 were also celebrated by many conservatives and groups such as the nonprofit Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement. Former state Rep. Joseph A. Trillo, now running for governor as an independent, has a list of campaign pledges that opens with, “Shed the image [of Rhode Island] as a sanctuary state.
“People were afraid to talk about illegal immigration in the country until Trump started a national conversation,” said Trillo. “Trump emboldened people; he gave people more confidence to come out and talk about it.”
Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU in Rhode Island, agreed that “a significant percentage of people support a Trump viewpoint on immigration.” Because of that, he said local communities need a catalyst or a core group willing to push for protection of immigrants.
“If a town council does not support undocumented people, they would probably just throw [the ACLU model ordinance] into the trash can,” he said.
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ON-SITE CLASS: Conrad Sanchez, machine operator at Mearthane Products Corp. in Cranston, is one of several workers at Mearthane taking English-language classes at the job site.
/ PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
‘APPALLING AND UNJUST’
H. Jefferson Melish, a lawyer, South Kingstown resident, member of the ACLU and the local immigration task force, said the town supported the ordinance because it is a historically progressive place where foreign-born people connected with the University of Rhode Island are a familiar part of the town’s population. Also, Melish said, some local churches were active in promoting the ordinance.
“It is our public policy to be diverse, inclusive and to not cooperate with federal authorities if they don’t have a warrant,” Melish said.
The Conanicut Sanctuary citizen’s group in Jamestown had hoped their community would be the second to formally adopt a version of the ACLU model, after they collected 500 signatures in support.
Instead, the Town Council set up a committee to study the issue. The June 18 decision came after the town solicitor warned that passing a local law blocking cooperation with federal authorities could place the town in legal jeopardy.
“This initiative for the town to enact the Immigrant Protection Ordinance lacks binding or reliable authority in Rhode Island statutory or decisional law,” Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero wrote in a report to the council. “Adopting a local ordinance based upon or similar to the Immigration Protection Ordinance will expose the town to unknown and uncertain liability.”
Richard Hitt, a member of Conanicut Sanctuary, said the steering committee now has the job of creating a course of action that the whole town can be comfortable with. “Disappointing as [the council’s action] was, I believe there is consensus of the council and the community that what is going on in the country is appalling and unjust,” he said. “We have a chance to address it, so let’s do it.”
While Trump’s often inflammatory, anti-immigrant rhetoric has stoked tensions and sparked debate across the nation and state, many of the most hotly contested issues existed well before his election.
They include: What benefits should the state offer to immigrants without legal status? Should local law enforcement cooperate with federal immigration authorities? How do immigrant workers, entrepreneurs and taxpayers affect the creation of wealth in Rhode Island?
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IMMIGRANT INVESTMENT: From left, Monica Luna, Lusia Pena and Dilenia Suero, bench workers at Mearthane Products Corp. in Cranston, are taking on-site English-language classes offered at Mearthane through Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island.
/ PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
COMPETING VIEWS
Immigrant groups and their supporters have come out in force on several local issues. They include:
• Statements by Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza reaffirming the capital’s status as a “sanctuary city.” The term has no legal status, but it implies the city will not actively cooperate with ICE officers to act against immigrants where no crime is charged. (Simply being in the country illegally is a civil, not criminal, violation.)
Providence did not adopt the model ACLU ordinance but has similar protections for undocumented residents.
Elorza on June 26 also unveiled municipal identification cards available to all residents, regardless of their citizenship status.
• A vigorous defense by the ACLU of Lilian Calderon, who was brought to the U.S. from Guatemala as a child, and who was detained in January by ICE when she went to an immigration office to work on her citizenship status.
• Policies by state and Providence police to not work with ICE in enforcing civil detainers or administrative warrants against undocumented immigrants (although they will cooperate in enforcing criminal warrants).
But Trillo and others who want more policing and legal prosecution against undocumented immigrants have succeeded in repeatedly blocking legislation to give limited driver’s licenses to undocumented people – a line-in-the-sand issue for supporters of immigrants.
“I have a problem with people who have entered the country illegally, because it’s illegal,” Trillo said. “We cannot pick and choose which laws to obey.” He said his greatest antipathy is toward undocumented people who enter the U.S. with a criminal past or who commit crimes here.
“There [are] a lot of good people who have been here for an extended period of time,” Trillo said, “but I am not sympathetic to MS-13,” a criminal gang with ties in Central America.
Trillo said Raimondo “is putting the population at risk” by not allowing state police to cooperate with ICE.
“It’s time to pull up the welcome mat,” Trillo said, adding that his first actions, if elected governor, would be to require state police to cooperate with ICE more fully and to reinstitute E-Verify, a system used by employers to check citizenship status of job applicants. (Former Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee shut down E-Verify in 2011, saying, “Employers should not be policemen for immigration officers.”)
Trillo believes that Trump’s actions have mobilized people who want to protect immigrants, and he thinks that many officeholders do so for political gain.
“Progressive Democrats saw an opportunity to be the savior for [undocumented] immigrants because they knew that would result in them getting votes,” Trillo said. “Gov. Raimondo’s base is made up of the Hispanic minority community.”
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LANGUAGE ASSISTANCE: Pinpoint Translation Services interpreter Patrick Janier, center, works with Marie Stemene Bouzier, left, and Opha Bouzier, both of Haiti, at Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island during Community Resource Day. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Raimondo stands by her welcoming immigration policies and thinks most R.I. voters are with her.
“Rhode Islanders are big-hearted, generous, tolerant people. … You see the diversity [in R.I.] and I think we know and believe that makes us stronger,” Raimondo told Providence Business News.
“Many of the immigration policies proposed by Donald Trump and Republicans – including the 287(g) program [deputizing local police] and the [travel] ban – are discriminatory and would make Rhode Island less safe,” added Emily Samsel, spokesperson for the governor’s re-election campaign. “
Human-rights activists got riled up in January when Calderon, a 30-year-old, undocumented woman living in West Warwick, was detained by ICE when she visited an immigration office with her husband, an American, to work on legalizing her status.
Calderon was released after the ACLU fired off lawsuits on her behalf. By late May, she was waiting for a final waiver that would allow her to return to Guatemala and restart the immigration process from there, said Gabriela Domenzain, director of the Latino Policy Institute at Roger Williams University.
Domenzain said the outrage, even outside immigrant communities, to the Calderon detention was a history-bender in the state.
“My impression is that folks understood this as a human-rights issue,” Domenzain said. “The Trump administration is hell-bent on breaking immigrant families. [People know] these families are just like our own, 20 years after a grandparent arrived.”
While only one Rhode Island community has adopted a version of the ACLU model ordinance, both the R.I. State Police and the Providence police department have declined to join the federal 287(g) program, which trains and deputizes local police forces to help ICE. Officials from both departments said their staff does not have the expertise or mission to track violators of immigration rules.
“We are not immigration agents; we do not enforce immigration laws,” said Lt. Col. Joseph Philbin, chief investigative officer for the state police. However, regular police procedures can tip off ICE. When police arrest or detain a person for any reason, that person’s information is placed in a national database. ICE sees the database and might track down the person if an immigration detainer exists for him or her.
Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare said the city does not participate in 287(g). “We believe that is the role of the federal government,” Pare said. However, both state and city departments will work with ICE to enforce criminal warrants against immigrants.
In contrast, the Sheriff’s Department of Bristol County, Mass., sought and won admission to the 287(g) program. Department spokesman Jonathan Darling said that during the normal intake procedure in county jails, if a person under arrest was born outside the United States, the interview is moved to a 287(g)-trained sheriff’s department officer, who will report his findings to an ICE supervisor. ICE may then act on its own.
Darling said the department is proud to be part of 287(g) because it is “a valuable program for public safety.” He added, “People who ICE issues a detainer on are people who might be able to get out into the community and do harm. These are people ICE considers a threat to public safety.”
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COMMUNITY RESOURCE: Aihasan Wandi, a student from Ethiopia, attends Community Resource Day at Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, a nonprofit agency that provides education, English classes, legal help and social services to immigrants.
/ PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Still, Darling said, his department doesn’t consider undocumented immigrants as particularly dangerous. “They are the same threat to public safety as anyone else who is arrested and brought to jail,” he said.
In Rhode Island, the halls of political power have often seemed conflicted on treatment of immigrants.
Most state policies that aim to protect or assist immigrants are in the form of agency regulations or executive orders, not law. Overall, the General Assembly has shown limited support to immigrants through legislative action.
Bills introduced at every session in the last few years that would grant driver’s licenses to people who have entered the United States without documentation have repeatedly failed, including this year.
An exception is recent passage of legislation that would continue renewal of driver’s licenses for people brought into the United States as minors who received temporary protected status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Rep. Shelby Maldonado, D-Central Falls, a co-sponsor of the House version of the bill, said it is important for the well-being of affected residents and sends a message beyond the borders of Rhode Island. “This is an opportunity for other states to take on this issue,” Maldonado said, “so that the current president understands the importance of the DACA community and how they contribute to our country.”
Supporters of driver’s licenses, who include Raimondo, argue that many undocumented people are driving anyway, out of necessity, and that licenses would make roads safer by requiring driving tests. Further, they say, these licenses would create an income stream for the Department of Motor Vehicles and the insurance industry and protect other drivers financially in case of a collision. In addition, licenses for undocumented people would be a good way to have their addresses on file, police have said.
“It is immoral and unconscionable that we are not allowing these people to get a license or permit,” said Sen. Frank Ciccone, D-Providence, who has submitted legislation in each of the last few years to allow these licenses. “The state is looking for more revenue and it’s sitting right in front of us.”
A half-dozen senators who voted in the Senate Committee on Judiciary last year against bills to allow these licenses did not return repeated phone calls to discuss their opposition.
Commissioner Pare, a former state trooper, supports driver’s licenses for undocumented people. “I would rather have them trained, licensed, insured, and following the rules of the road,” Pare said. “Driving is important to be able to prosper.”
Asked to interpret the opposition to driver’s licenses for undocumented people, Pare said, “People believe that [those] here illegally should not be here.” If legislators voted for licenses for immigrants that natives consider scofflaws, “it would go against what a lot of people believe, that [undocumented people] didn’t go through the system to get here.”
Terry Gorman, executive director of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement, said his group supports immigrants who follow legal procedures to be in the U.S. but has no tolerance for undocumented people.
Gorman also objected to the large proportion of non-English speakers in Providence schools, who, he believes, probably hold back progress for other students. “I’ve got nothing against the kids, but if there are 20 kids in the classroom and 10 don’t speak English, how does [a] teacher address that?”
Providence Schools Superintendent Chris Maher said the system has many different English as a Second Language resources and classroom options for non-English speakers, both foreign- and native-born. Almost one-third of the 24,000 students in Providence public schools need English-language instruction.
Efforts are made to entice immigrant parents into the school community, a key for greater success by students.
Gorman’s belief that undocumented immigrants reach too deep into social-services coffers is not supported by academic studies such as “The Contributions of New Americans in Rhode Island,” an August 2016 report by New America Economy, which draws heavily on data from the U.S. Census and Pew Research Center.
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USEFUL INFO: Charles Rocha, who was born in Senegal and emigrated from Cape Verde, speaks at Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island during Community Resource Day, held for students who are immigrants or refugees.
/ PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
ECONOMIC BOOST
The report describes immigrants generally as doggedly hardworking and often founders of businesses who create wealth and raise the economic status of local communities.
According to the report, “In 2014, immigrant-led households in Rhode Island earned $3.5 billion” and “… immigrants also contributed almost $432.4 million to the Social Security and Medicare programs that year.”
Ocean State immigrants (who total approximately 140,000) had spending power amounting to $2.6 billion in 2014.
Immigrants may tether manufacturing jobs – an important sector in Rhode Island – to the state, the report said, because “Foreign-born workers give employers access to a large and relatively affordable pool of laborers, making it less attractive for firms to move offshore.”
Immigrants also start businesses and employ people. The 2016 report said “5,113 immigrants in Rhode Island are self-employed” and “immigrant-owned businesses generated $36.5 million in business income in 2014.”
The New American Economy report also disagrees that immigrants take jobs from native-born Americans. It says immigrants with limited skills tend to work in jobs that don’t require speaking with the public, such as meat processing, sewing-machine operators or nail salon techs. Native-born workers without a high school degree often take jobs such as cashier, receptionist and food service.
“Right now, these [undocumented immigrants] are underground,” said the ACLU’s Brown. “If they were brought to the light of day, they could be a force in driving our economy forward.”
One Rhode Island manufacturer with lots of experience hiring and investing in its immigrant employees is Mearthane Products Corp. in Cranston, a small manufacturer of polyurethane components. Mearthane accepted an offer of on-site English classes from Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, a nonprofit agency that provides education, English classes, legal help and social services to immigrants. English classes are taught in a 12-week program in which workers stay at work after hours twice a week for intensive English training.
Holding classes at the end of the workday eases problems of transportation and child care, which workers would have to solve to attend off-hours English classes anywhere.
Beryl Mulcahey, human resources manager for Mearthane, said the employees loved the classes and are asking for more. “The classes promoted a lot of goodwill.”
Most of the Mearthane workforce is comprised of immigrants, some of whom have been on staff for many years.
“They are a totally loyal and dedicated workforce,” she said. “They want to do better for themselves and their families.”
Not surprisingly, religious institutions have been among the most welcoming to immigrants in the Ocean State. Donald Anderson, executive minister of the Rhode Island Council of Churches, speaks both hard facts and Gospel passion.
“We need these workers,” he said. “They are not a drain on the economy.”
Anderson’s view is also informed by his profession. “The Scriptures say that we should treat these people as citizens,” he said.
South Kingstown Town Manager Robert Zarnetsky previously worked with immigrant entrepreneurs as an administrator for the U.S. General Services Administration, which manages civilian contracts with the government.
“These people are eager to learn and to be guided. They want to do it right,” Zarnetsky said. “With a little bit of information and a little bit of guidance you find they are eager to jump in and participate in the rule of law.”
(Staff writer Mary MacDonald contributed to this report.)