Terry Gorman, the executive director of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement (RIILE) spoke this past Thursday evening at the Portsmouth Multi Purpose Senior Center at an event entitled "How Illegal Immigration Affects Rhode Islanders' Pocketbooks."

Gorman gave a lengthy speech delving into the issues that surround illegal immigration and how Rhode Island has become a hub for people in search of care.

According to Gorman, the social services helping illegal immigrants are costing Rhode Island at least $441 million per year and the biggest expense starts with education.

Gorman began with a story of the schools in Pawtucket a few years back, when 264 children showed up on the first day of school unannounced. The superintendent of the school wrote an article about how 200 showed up at Shea High School and 64 at Slater Junior High School. Nobody knew where they came from and the majorities of them were non-English speaking and had never been at a school a day in their life, Gorman said.

"The year that this happened, the Pawtucket school system was in the hole $6.5 million," said Gorman. "If you go there, there are a large number of interpreters and a large number of aides that go from school to school to help out the children and help out the teachers. All of this is an extra burden on the community. I don't know what the solution is."

Gorman proceeded to talk about the other three major expenses that are weighing down Rhode Islander pockets, which according to RIILE, include RiteCare, uncompensated medical care and the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) incarcerations.

Gorman gave an example of illegal immigrants who come to Rhode Island pregnant.

"Women can come to Rhode Island three, four, five, six months pregnant illegally however they get here," he said. "They go right down and get an advocate in Providence. The advocate takes them down to the department of human services. They are given an interpreter who we provide who gives them the choice of Blue Cross, United Health, Neighborhood Health or Tufts.

"While they are accepted into this program they are given free prenatal care right up until they have the baby. They are given a cash card with $440 a month to spend as they please. They are given another card which is up to $275 a month in food stamps to spend on food and when the baby is born, the baby is a U.S. citizen."

According to RIILE, hospitals and low-income housing are burdened with the influx of undocumented citizens and as a result, U.S. citizens are taking the backseat, he said.

"If they are legal immigrants than more power to them, cause that's what built our country," Gorman said. "We want people to come and learn the system and get assimilated and become citizens.

"Look at the latest people who have become so successful. Look at all the legal Portuguese immigrants that came here and look where they are now.

"But when they came here they never went down to city hall or to the hospitals and demanded an interpreter. They brought someone down there that could interpret for them."


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