riile – RI Future

May 2, 2016

Student activists urge House Finance Committee to pass tuition equity

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Rep. Grace Diaz’s Tuition Equity bill was heard in the House Finance Committee meeting Thursday evening, with several student activists giving powerful testimony in support of the legislation. House Bill 7374 would codify existing policy that grants in-state tuition rates at Rhode Island’s public colleges and universities to undocumented students who have graduated from the state’s public high schools.

WRCcCtYX.00_00_55_20.Still001 — Rep. Grace Diaz testifying on her own bill, H7374

Rep. Diaz has introduced this legislation for over 11 years, and now, 20 other states have adopted similar policies, although only 16 have codified such in law. Diaz noted that she “was surprised to see many states that also provided tuition assistance to some students”, which her bill nor Rhode Island policy currently provides. She concluded by stating: “Regardless of immigration [policy], I believe every student needs to have access to higher education”

Even though Diaz’s bill is currently a policy that Rhode Island’s public institutions follow, she wishes to codify it as she is “afraid at some point we might have a governor who will get rid of the [existing] policy”

Rhode Island Kids Count also came out in support of the bill, stating that it is time to codify this legislation in law, as we have had a chance to see how it has been implemented.

Rodrigo Pimentel, Secretary of the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats

Rodrigo Pimentel, representing Jobs with Justice, railed against the oft-used reasoning of immigration opponents: “the law is the law”. Here’s what they had to say about it:

“When we look back upon history, we see different groups that were marginalized and scapegoated for our nation’s problems. The oppressors will appeal to the law, often stating that “the law is the law” — they will hold the law as sacrosanct, as many have unfortunately done throughout our past.”

Pimentel said that “during slavery, run-away slaves would break the law by attempting to illegally cross the Mason-Dixon line, and the Quakers and abolitionists also knowingly violated the law by helping them. And it was the white slave owners that made it against the law to help runaway slaves.”

They also alluded to Donald Trump’s demagoguery, stating: “Today, we have a demagogue who comes along and says, “I know what the causes of your problems are”, it’s the immigrants, it’s the muslims, but it wasn’t so long ago when it was the uppity women who were trying to take jobs away from men, or blacks who were trying to take jobs away from whites. That’s what demagoguery is about. It is to dehumanize, disenfranchise, and discriminate, all to obfuscate the real problems facing our society.

Pimentel concluded their testimony by urging the Committee to “[reject] political expediency and [be] on the right side of history. By doing such, the committee will show that human dignity is sacrosanct, not blind appeals to the law.”

William Perry, member of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement.

Predictably, and embarrassingly, Terry Gorman and William Perry, of RIILE, resorted to appealing to what Pimentel had just spent their entire testimony dismantling: “the law is the law”. Perry stated how the current policy would is “aiding and abiding illegal immigration”, arguing that it is a violation of federal immigration law.

Addiqa Saleem, a student at the Community College of Rhode Island, supported the legislation. Even though she is not undocumented, she testified about her own experience on trying to qualify for in-state tuition as a legal immigrant in the State of Rhode Island.

Sabine Adrian, a Providence Student Union organizer, also came out in support of the legislation, reading written testimony of an undocumented student who could not have been present at the hearing.

Yaruska Ordinola, a senior at the University of Rhode Island testified in support. She eloquently stated that “by supporting this bill, you’re giving students like me the voice to pursue their education, students like me who call Rhode Island their home. We’re asking for a possibility, to pursue an education, and make our futures a reality”

For the full testimony, including other student activists and community members who testified on the legislation, see the video below:

March 16, 2016

Full video: House hears testimony over driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants

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Two competing bills were heard in the House Judiciary Committee meeting Tuesday evening in a hearing that lasted well over 6 hours and had over 4 dozen people testifying. House bill 7610, submitted by Representative Anastasia Williams, would grant driving privilege license to undocumented immigrants. House Bill 7859, introduced by Representative Arthur Corvese, would make issuing such licenses illegal. Over 200 advocates for licenses filled the main rotunda with reverberating chants during the hearing, which was often emotional and contentious.

2016-03-15 Driver's Licences Undocumented 007 — Gorman and Nardolillo

This became evident immediately as Reps Williams and Corvese verbally sparred even before presenting their bills, which were heard simultaneously. Committee Chair Cale Keable worked hard to keep the peace, and surprisingly did not put a cap on speaking times, allowing people to speak until they were done.

Both bills have been held for further study, and the ultimate fate of the bills is in doubt. Governor Gina Raimondo has indicated that she wants a bill allowing driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants to be passed and that she is ready to sign such a bill. She made a campaign promise to issue an executive order granting such licenses within her first year in office, a promise she has broken in favor of a legislative solution.

Below is all the testimony presented during the hearing last night, each speaker given a separate video. For the purposes of time it is impossible for me to do justice to all the wonderful testimony given in support of allowing undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses, just as it is impossible for me to get into some of the racism and xenophobia presented by the other side. Hopefully, the occasional notes I’ve provided below can point people towards some of the testimony I found the most interesting.

Rep Doreen Costa, vice-chair of the House Judiciary Committee, told Corvese that he had presented a “great bill.”

Rep Joseph Almeida took Corvese to task for using the term “sanctuary city” in reference to Providence. Corvese responded that, “I do not countenance political correctness,” said Corvese, “and I never have.”

Mayors Jorge Elorza of Providence and James Diossa of Central Falls both spoke in favor of licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Rep Robert Nardolillo, who quoted FAIR, (Federation for American Immigration Reform) in his Providence Journal op-ed, did not exactly do himself any favors by testifying. FAIR has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Foundation as a hate group. At one point Nardolillo seemed to imply that immigrants were more likely to drive without insurance that non-immigrants. Here’s a quote from the founder of FAIR for Nardolillo and others to ponder:

“As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?”
— John Tanton, founder of FAIR

Terry Gorman, of RIILE, lists FAIR on its links page. They also list the Minuteman Project and American Border Patrol, also listed as “extremist nativist groups” by the SPLC. I don’t know how RIILE avoids being on the SPLC hate group list.

July 29, 2014July 29, 2014

The economics of refugee children

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If the most important thing in the world is the Economy and all else is secondary in consideration, then human life is only valuable in as much as it contributes to the efficient maintenance of the Economy. In such a world the makers of things and the investors of Capital are of primary importance, while the takers of things and those incapable of meaningful contribution are at best to be considered luxuries and at worst impediments to our great society.

It is easy to understand why Terry Gorman, founder of nativist hate group RIILE, motivated by racism and misanthropy, would be so outraged by the influx of refugee children that he would hold weekly rallies to announce his special kind of awfulness to the world, but it is harder to understand the rationale of those who maintain that they are not motivated by unreasoning hatred, but by simple considerations of market forces and uncontrollable economic reality.

Justin Katz, appearing on Channel 10’s Wingmen recently, maintained that, “illegal immigrants” will put a burden on schools and other social services, even though the group Katz fronts for, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, actively seeks to cut funds for schools and social services. In his defense, Katz is merely following his economic ideas to their inevitable conclusion: Since the kinds of policies the Center advocates for have already made it more difficult to adequately care for at-risk children presently living in Rhode Island, how can our state possibly afford to care for even more at-risk children?

What any potential influx of refugee children will reveal about the Rhode Island economy is what economist Robert Reich calls a vicious circle, a complex working of policies that reinforces itself through a feedback loop with ever more negative economic consequences, at least for most of us. (A very few will attain unimaginable wealth.) The rules in Rhode Island have been constructed to deprive the necessities of life to those deemed incapable of meaningful contributions to the all-important Economy. The arrival of hungry children simply makes this fact gallingly apparent.

This is why religious values always fail when stacked up against conservative economic values. Bishop Tobin, of the Providence Catholic Diocese, can quite clearly say, on religious grounds, “If the refugee children come to Rhode Island I hope and pray that all the members of our community will work together, in a thoughtful and compassionate way, to welcome them and care for them to the very best of our ability. The Catholic Church will do its part. Certainly the children should not be the object of our political scorn” but these words are completely ignored by members of groups like RI Taxpayers, who publicly “supports Terry Gorman and his RIILE group.”

Larry Girouard, President of RI Taxpayers, allows his website to carry such pleasantries as, “While the feds may be paying the expenses of these children, we all know it will be a matter of time before that expense will be passed to the state taxpayers. This state is under enough financial pressure with a bloated state budget. This is just another expense the taxpayers didn’t need or expect.”

How small.

What are we to make of an economic system bounded by policies that cannot value the lives of children? Are we to simply shrug our shoulders and resign ourselves to an arbitrary rule system, championed by people like Girouard and Katz, that reduces and dehumanizes refugee children to “objects of our political scorn”? If the rules are such that multitudes of people must suffer so that a very few might live in unimaginable and undeserved opulence, why are we playing by such rules? Why must we reject what is best in ourselves, our empathy, to serve the venal economic wishes of a group of small minded Objectivists more concerned with fostering human greed than human compassion?

Happily, those that would deny food and shelter to refugee children are far outnumbered by the rest of us who see caring for those in need as being essential to our very humanity. Questioning the need to offer assistance to children stuns us. It’s impossible to not see such attitudes as some kind of perverse joke and an abandonment of essential human values. “I’m not going to ruin a perfectly good pair of $200 shoes wading into a puddle to save a drowning two-year old,” is something said by villains, not decent people.

When groups like RI Taxpayers or the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity tell us what the rules of the economy should be, we hear them talk about fairness and equity, and we assume that they are honest moral players with whom we disagree. When the pain of their policies fall on us, we bear it, because we have been bewildered by their talk of fairness. We believe that our placement in the great Economic game has been determined honestly, and that we are somehow getting what we deserve.

However, at the moment children show up at our door, hungry and without shelter and those that set the rules tell us we are powerless to help, we see the Economy for what it is: a game to keep us poor and powerless.

That’s when we wake up, and tell them we aren’t playing their game anymore.

July 21, 2014July 21, 2014

Racist rhetoric from anti-immigration group RIILE

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RIILE (Rhode Islanders For Immigration Law Enforcement) is a nativist hate group.

The inspiration for RIILE and a big help in organizing the group was FAIR, (Federation for American Immigration Reform) according to a June 29, 2008 ProJo piece by Karen Lee Ziner. Sandra Gunn, FAIR’s Eastern field rep, “came to Pawtucket… at the invitation of William ‘Terry’ Gorman, a 68-year-old retired postal worker and member of FAIR since 1997. Gorman, increasingly frustrated, wanted to organize his own local campaign against illegal immigration. Gorman and his wife were among the eight people at the organizational meeting on Feb. 28, 2006, of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement. Gunn provided start-up strategy, literature from FAIR and advice to the new members, Gorman said.”

On Friday, July 18, 2014 RIILE organized a protest against the large number of refugee children crossing the border. The action at the Rhode Island State House was at the behest of ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC). The protest drew about two dozen people and consisted of Terry Gorman and others speaking to a tiny crowd of rapidly dwindling reporters.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified both FAIR and ALIPAC as Nativist hate groups based on their rhetoric, and there is little to differentiate RIILE, though the SPLC has not made the determination that RIILE is a hate group.

The SPLC website says of FAIR: “Although FAIR maintains a veneer of legitimacy that has allowed its principals to testify in Congress and lobby the federal government, this veneer hides much ugliness. FAIR leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have made many racist statements. Its advertisements have been rejected because of racist content. FAIR’s founder, John Tanton, has expressed his wish that America remain a majority-white population: a goal to be achieved, presumably, by limiting the number of nonwhites who enter the country.”

ALIPAC’s president, William Gheen, recently asked his members to mail their used underwear to members of congress and to the refugee children crossing the border, saying “Instead of using our tax money to buy illegals 42,000 pairs of new underwear, we would like to send the illegals and DC politicians a message by mailing them our used underwear, and some of our pairs are in really bad shape due to the bad economy and all of the jobs illegal immigrants are taking from Americans.” In an open letter to the SPLC, Gheen complained about being labeled a hate group.

On Friday, here in Rhode Island, Terry Gorman talked for nearly an hour in a rambling, conspiracy fueled screed warning of disease, economic cataclysm and possible terrorist incursions as a result of offering aid to the thousands of undocumented refugee children arriving at our borders. Gorman blamed the recent gang violence in Providence on “illegals” with no evidence to support his claims.

And then there were the conspiracy theories. According to Gorman, as many as four hundred refugee children may have been flown into Rhode Island on a pair C-130’s and then bused to secret locations throughout our state on the day of the rally. Gorman has heard this rumor on Facebook and claims the information is solid, but is not at liberty to reveal his source. Obama and Chafee, says Gorman, are working together to destroy Rhode Island and destroy the United States.

In an hour of unbelievable statements, the most over-the-top was when Terry Gorman said that if he knew that there was a busload of refugee children leaving Quonsett airport, he would lay down in front of the bus to prevent the children from finding shelter in our state. Gorman is the kind of person who sees news reports of unhinged Americans screaming at frightened, hungry busloads of children and imagines how cool it would be to join them at the front lines. He is a fearful, mean-spirited person.

Unfortunately, Terry Gorman was not alone. Joining him behind the podium was Gorman’s daughter-in-law and executive director of RIILE, Karen Gorman; Larry Girouard, of Rhode Island Taxpayers; Rhue Reese, Republican challenger to Representative Jim Langevin; John Carnavale, Republican running for Secretary of State; right-wing radio host Lee Ann Sennick; Mike Daz, who runs an organization in nearby Massachusetts called Overpasses for America and Monique Chartier, who writes for Anchor Rising and is associated with the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity. Mark Zaccaria, the Republican challenger to Senator Jack Reed, wished he could have been there, but had a prior engagement.

These then, are the people in Rhode Island who lack compassion, are ruled by fear and susceptible to nonsensical conspiracy theory. These are the people who see a humanitarian crisis and respond with thinly veiled racism, stupidity and xenophobia. These are, without a doubt, the very worst people Rhode Island has to offer, and I find solace in the fact that they are not only small in spirit, but small in number and small in support.

The arguments made during the rally can be heard in the statements of people not directly associated with the groups represented. State representative Peter Palumbo demonstrated once again that he has no problem bullying children when he wrote a letter to Governor Chafee asking that refugee children be turned away from our state. (Palumbo, it should be remembered, once called my niece, Jessica Ahlquist, an “evil little thing” and a “pawn star” on the John DePetro Show simultaneously dehumanizing and sexualizing a sixteen year old girl.) Palumbo argued that the state simply can’t afford to help out hungry children, sentiments echoed by Gorman, Chartier and others at the rally.

Meanwhile, Bishop Thomas Tobin has taken a powerful stand against such hate. Speaking as the leader of the Providence Diocese, Tobin said, “If the refugee children come to Rhode Island, I hope and pray that all the members of our community will work together, in a thoughtful and compassionate way, to welcome them and care for them to the very best of our ability.” Tobin added, “Certainly the children should not be the object of our political scorn. As a starting point, in our public discussions, let’s avoid the negative rhetoric that serves only to inflame passions and divide the community.”

Let that sink in: Children should not be the object of our political scorn. Then compare that statement to this:

The full video of Gorman’s hate rally can be seen here. Warning: it will turn the stomach of decent people. (This video and the one above were shot by Adam Miner.)

Here’s the ad for the rally RIILE ran on Craig’sList: