4/9/2014

E-Verify debate ends in approval

CUMBERLAND - The citizenship status of any new employee of Town Hall will be checked from now on using the federal E-Verify data bank, Town Council members decided at last week's meeting.

The vote was 5 to 2, with President James Higgins and Vice President Craig Dwyer opposed.

Councilor Scott Schmitt submitted the ordinance that calls on officials to add E-Verify to the process of hiring Cumberland's two or three new employees a year. He was following up on a Cumberland Tea Party request, he said. In fact, Tea Party leader Bill Perry provided much of the data that councilors seemed to rely upon, including the news that most Rhode Island municipalities are already using it.

The ordinance isn't retroactive and doesn't apply to contractors or the School Department. Higgins' opposition centered on the added bureaucracy, and as he said during earlier debate, "a fundamental objection to subjecting would-be employees to a database that's accessible by Homeland Security."

He also called it "an affront to personal freedom to all citizens of the United States."

Councilor Craig Dwyer said last week, "I'm not in favor of hiring undocumented workers or illegal immigrants, but is it now going to cause people to think we have a problem in town?"

And Mayor Daniel McKee continued his strong objection, saying, "My concern is that we don't have a problem." He called it "a targeted piece of legislation." But he said later he won't be making good on an earlier threat to veto the legislation.

But Town Solicitor Tom Hefner, who heads up the town's Human Resources Department, told councilors, "It's not a big deal."

And Schmitt said as a business employer, it takes him just several minutes to use.

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