To the Editor of the Providence Journal, to our Legislators and to all People of Good Will:
It was a step forward for our state when Governor Chaffee, as one of his first executive actions, revoked our former governor’s draconian anti-immigrant executive order. And I’m saddened that representatives Palumbo and Flaherty have now introduced legislation to reinstate what the governor called a vehicle of “divisiveness, incivility and distrust among (our) state’s citizens.”
The economic arguments are complex and the place of our country’s undocumented workers in the economy are ill-understood. What is certain is that we are caught up in a web of interdependence that is not going to be unraveled at a state level. If these issues are to be worked out, it will have to happen at the Federal level. Whatever the merits of the Federal response, what happens with local legislation is too often a reign of terror against the least among us. It becomes not a way to protect local or national interests, but rather about scapegoating the defenseless for various social ills.
When Steven Brown, the executive director of Rhode Island’s ACLU said this isn’t about economics, “this is about discrimination.” He put his finger on the issue.
I stand with those who oppose HB 5043 and in favor of a more open and humane policy regarding the undocumented among us.
Sincerely,
(The Rev’d) James Ishmael Ford
Senior Minister
First Unitarian Church of Providence
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