Legislation

The ACLU of RI testified in February before the House Labor committee in opposition to a bill making E-Verify use mandatory by Rhode Island employers, and in favor of a bill keeping the E-Verify program voluntary.

The General Assembly again considered a number of bills to require the use of the E-Verify program before hiring any workers.

The year got off to a positive start when, on his first day in office, Governor Chafee signed an executive order lifting a requirement that state agencies and business contractors use the deeply flawed federal E-Verify program to check the immigration status of workers.

The Affiliate also testified in opposition to legislation to require all communities to participate in the federal Secure Communities program, which requires an automatic check of the fingerprints of any arrested individual against immigration databases.

Expect to see repeat legislation this year from Immigrants United (IU), a coalition of which the RI ACLU is an active member.

A perennial anti-immigrant bill, requiring all nongovernmental employers with more than two employees to enroll in and use the controversial federal E-Verify program, has had its hearing in the House.

The Senate thankfully did not vote on legislation that would require all non-governmental businesses to use the controversial and flawed E-Verify program to verify the work eligibility status of new hires.

The Senate has passed ACLU-proposed legislation that would codify into state law a consent agreement between the Rhode Island Department of Human Services and the federal government requiring appropriate language interpreter services for DHS clients.

It was touch-and-go until the very end, but a strong lobbying effort from the ACLU and other civil rights groups persuaded the Senate not to enact a House-passed bill requiring all employers in the state to participate in the federal government’s faulty “E-Verify” program