Providing licenses for undocumented immigrants in Rhode Island is an idea that is not going away. After Governor Gina Raimondo failed to deliver on her campaign promise to issue an executive order allowing the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to issue operator licenses to undocumented immigrants, the General Assembly took up the issue at the Governor’s request. Bills were introduced in the House and Senate. The House bill was heard by the Judiciary committee and held for further study.
Todos Somo Arizona (TSAZ) is a coalition of groups including Jobs with Justice, English for Action, Fuerza Laboral, Comite de Inmigrantes, RI Interfaith Coalition, 32BJSEIU RI, AFCS, Estudios Biblicos and ONA, that is holding a series of actions at the State House to keep attention focused on the issue and on Tuesday activists were loud and their presence was felt, even in the midst of a Second Amendment Rights rally happening at roughly the same time.
At least 400 2nd Amendment Coalition members turned out to pressure the House Judiciary Committee on a raft of bills being heard concerning guns. Nearly 100 members of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence (RICAGV) turned out to have their say on the bills as well.
This lead to some friction, like when former candidate for Mayor of Warwick Stacia Huyler decided to chide the Licenses for All coalition for being too loud. The irony of a Second Amendment activist complaining about people using their First Amendment rights was lost on Huyler.
The issue of granting driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants is not going away. Everyone, regardless of status, deserves to be allowed to function in our society, and until this becomes the law in Rhode Island, these protests will continue.
Here’s all of this year’s coverage of the issue from RI Future:
- Licenses for All rally rocks opening session at State House
- Progressive Dems urge Raimondo to issue executive order on driver’s licenses
- Two protests rock State House during Governor’s budget address
- Undocumented workers pay $33.4 million in RI taxes and they need drivers licenses
- I used to live in fear: Driver’s licenses and the undocumented
- Bishop Tobin supports driver’s licenses for undocumented workers
- Full video: House hears testimony over driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants
- Driver’s license debate is driven by nativism
About five minutes before Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed, as per tradition, lead Governor Raimondo to the House Chambers, English for Action, a group dedicated to improving the lives of immigrants and undocumented workers, entered the State House to stage their own protest. Candidate Raimondo had promised this group that she would issue an executive order, within her first year in office, allowing undocumented workers to get driver’s licenses.
When Governor Gina Raimondo was a candidate, she did not promise to partner with the legislature to work out a solution to the problem of undocumented workers and access to driver’s licenses. She said that she would issue an executive order compelling the DMV to begin issuing such licenses within her first year in office. In fact, she signed her name to that promise. Raimondo has two days to make good on her word, or it will be a campaign promise broken.
Community groups lead a march through Olneyville to remind Governor Gina Raimondo of her election year promise to sign an executive order giving undocumented residents of RI access to driver’s licenses. The groups carried the written promise with them as they marched, signed by the then candidate for governor when she met with them. The pledge originally said that as Governor she would issue the executive order within thirty days of being elected, but Raimondo crossed out thirty days and wrote in “one year.”
May 1 is International Workers Day so 
The celebration was held in solidarity with 
