Winlock won't be joining four local governing bodies that have adopted E-Verify, a documentation and background check designed to prevent illegal immigrants from getting jobs.

According to Winlock Mayor Glen Cook, a measure to approve Employment Verification of workers' citizenship failed to pass in a Sept. 27 city council meeting. Cook would not release details of the vote pending approval of the Sept. 27 council minutes in an upcoming city council meeting.

"E-Verify is something that really doesn't apply to Winlock, honestly," Cook said. "We know everyone we deal with here in Winlock and really don't change our contractors. E-Verify would have no significance to our town at all."

So far in 2010, Centralia, Chehalis, Napavine and Lewis County have adopted E-Verify as a means of trying to weed out undocumented contractors working for the cities and county. Under E-Verify, the city would run their workers' backgrounds — names and Social Security numbers — through a background check that is more intensive than a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' I-9, or employment eligibility form.

The Sept. 27 city council meeting was attended by a large number of E-Verify proponents from Onalaska and Cinebar who had previously given presentations to the council on why they felt Winlock should adopt the measure. One such proponent was Robin Roy of Cinebar, who brought her 91-year-old mother to the meeting to speak of their family's experience with illegal immigrants in Idaho in the 1960s.

Roy had detailed in a previous meeting how her mother had been injured in a car accident involving undocumented workers on land her family had previously owned, but had been bought out by a large company. She said her family had to foot the bill to "rebuild our lives" and was left to suffer for years to come.

"If such an incident happened to us, it's going to happen to someone else," Roy told The Chronicle this morning.

Roy said council members Ann Rubert and Eliaci Sanchez took exception to the group's presentations during the Sept. 27 meeting, calling them "racist" and "hate-filled." Roy said she was "shocked and frustrated" to see the display from two council members."(Rubert) said she had felt the anger emanating out of us," said Roy, who also wrote a letter to the editor of The Chronicle about the meeting. "I don't know why they called us racist. I expected that if people disagree on an issue like this, we could work it out in a constructive way instead of resorting to name calling."

Rubert could not be contacted as of press time Tuesday morning, but the mayor said the group promoting E-Verify had been "a little enthusiastic" in their presentations to the council and that Rubert had alluded to the group's tone as being racist. Cook went on to apologize for any offense taken by Roy or any of the other presenters.

"They may have said some things they probably shouldn't have said," Cook said of the group. "It did come across as racist to a couple of the councilors, but if representatives of the city offended anyone, I'm truly sorry."

As for Robin Roy, she accepts Cook's apology and Winlock's decision to continue doing business as it does currently without Employment Verification - but she's still scared an incident that she says changed her family's life for good could happen to someone else at some point.

"Illegal workers undercut businesses and people's way of life wherever they're employed," Roy said. "I would just hate to see it happen here in Lewis County."


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