June 7, 2012 Chairman Stephen Brewer Senate Ways and Means Room 212 Chairman Brian Dempsey House

Ways and Means Room 243 State House Boston, MA 02133 Honorable Members of the Conference Committee: The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) deeply appreciates your support and commitment, in previous budget seasons, to immigrants and refugees and to the integration efforts of the Commonwealth. Maintaining funding for programs that promote the economic, social, and physical well-being of immigrants helps ensure that they continue to integrate and to be productive contributors to the Commonwealth as workers, business-owners and new citizen voters. We respectfully request your renewed support for the priorities of immigrant communities through inclusion of the following appropriations in the Legislatures final FY2013 budget: Level fund the Citizenship for New Americans Program (line item: 4003-0122) at $237,500 (as in House 2, House and Senate budgets). Level fund Adult Basic Education and English for Speakers of Other Languages (line item 7035-0002) at $30,707,455 (as in House 2 and Senate budget). Fund Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention and Victim Services in DPH line item 4513-1130, which includes the Refugee and Immigrant Safety and Empowerment program, at $5,514,340 (as in Senate budget). Fund the Employment Services Program (line item 4401-1000) at $8,109,035 (as in House budget), including $380,000 for the Employment Support Services Program administered by the Office for Refugees and Immigrants (ORI). Vice Chair Jennifer Flanagan Senate Ways and Means Room 410 Vice Chair Stephen Kulik House Ways and Means Room 238 Senator Michael Knapik Senate Ways and Means Room 419 Representative Viriato DeMacedo House Ways and Means Room 124

Unfortunately, our concerns extend beyond appropriations for critical programs, as the House and Senate budgets included harmful policy changes, largely drawn from bills which have not received favorable committee reports, such as the omnibus Act to Enhance Community Safety, (H. 3913/S. 2061). We urge you to exclude such provisions from the Legislatures final budget, specifically to exclude Senate Amendment GOV 128.1 and certain provisions of House Amendment 538.1. These amendments present unanswered questions about their costs to courts, correctional facilities, state agencies and businesses and would have sweeping and harmful consequences for immigrants and native-born communities alike. Among the harmful provisions of the Senates consolidated amendment GOV 128.1 are those that would: Require all public employers, state contractors and subcontractors to use E-Verify, a system found to impose high costs on businesses 1 and, most concerning, to have a high error rate which denies many authorized workers employment without meaningful recourse. 2

See Regulatory Impact Analysis, Employment Eligibility Verification (Federal Acquisition Regulation Case 2007-013), Final Rule, October 1, 2008, available at: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FAR-FAR-2008-0001-1609
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Prevent "applicants" for state public housing who are neither federally-eligible nor person[s] residing under color of law (PRUCOL) from receiving "priority" over those who are federally eligible or PRUCOL. In effect, this would likely bar from public housing mixed status families headed by a non-PRUCOL individual and could deny many U.S. citizens, as well as lawfully present, taxpaying immigrants, access to public housing. Because a federal court enjoined on equal protection grounds a previous attempt by Massachusetts to discriminate against immigrants in public housing, this provision would likely be challenged as unconstitutional and could subject the state to costly litigation. Require applicants for driver's licenses and learner's permits to submit proof of "lawful presence, a provision which could increase wrongful denials of licenses and learners permits to documented immigrants. Under current Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) policies, undocumented immigrants do not obtain drivers licenses in MA, unless they do so by fraud. Rather, the current problem is that some documented immigrants including, e.g., refugees and those approved for green cards are denied licenses when their documents and statuses prove confusing to RMV employees. The RMV should not be thrust into the position of making complex immigration status determinations, as it has neither the expertise nor the resources to do so. Increase documentation requirements for registering a motor vehicle, including requiring social security numbers (SSNs) for sole proprietors registering a vehicle for a business and requiring, for any applicant, an SSN, identification card issued by the RMV, or "other proof of legal residence." This provision would similarly put the RMV in the position of making complex immigration status determinations and could result in wrongful denials of vehicle registrations to documented immigrants ineligible for SSNs but eligible for MA drivers licenses or driving privileges under treaty. Alter criminal penalties for numerous driving and identification related offenses, including by allowing for imprisonment, or increased imprisonment. Serious changes to criminal law, in particular changes which could increase incarceration, deserve careful and transparent consideration, with opportunity for public input, of whether the proposed penalties have a demonstrated connection to increased deterrence, as well as their potential to strain resources of our courts and correctional facilities. Among the criminal penalties this amendment would provide are: o o o o Increased fines for employing or permitting an unlicensed driver to operate ones vehicle. An altered structure of fines for driving without a license and, for third and subsequent offenses, a possible 30 days imprisonment. Up to one year imprisonment for using a false identification document to obtain or maintain employment. Graduated penalties, including up to a $10,000 fine and 15 years in prison, for a new crime of falsely making, stealing, altering, forging or counterfeiting, with intent to distribute, one or more RMV-issued identification documents. Fines of up to $1000 and/or 90 days in prison for transferring, altering, defacing, using or carrying "any such card or license," 3 or using anothers license or furnishing false information to obtain "such card or license. Up to $5000 and/or five years in prison for selling or distributing a false identification card.

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2 Westat, Findings of the Web Basic Pilot Evaluation, Report Submitted to Department of Homeland Security, September, 2007, at xxviii, 148. Available at: http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/WebBasicPilotRprtSept2007.pdf, and Westat, Findings of the E-Verify Program Evaluation, December 2009, xxxv-xxxvi. Available at: http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/E-Verify/E-Verify/Final%20E-Verify%20Report%2012-16-09_2.pdf. See also Center for American Progress, Seen and (Mostly) Unseen: The True Costs of E-Verify, Available at: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/pdf/e_verify.pdf, National Conference of State Legislatures, E-Verify FAQ, revised November 4, 2011. Available at: http://www.ncsl.org/?tabid=13127; Letter of Rep Roybal-Allard to USCIS, Help Workers Barred from their Jobs because of E-Verify Errors, May 1, 2012, Available at: http://roybal-allard.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=293577 3 Read in the context of the full section, "such card or license" appears to mean an RMV-issued ID that was falsely made, stolen, altered, forged or counterfeited, or obtained by impersonating another or using a false name. This offense has significant overlap with offenses already punished with different penalties under current law.

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In addition, while less sweeping than Senate Amendment GOV 128.1, House Amendment 538.1 contained some concerning provisions that we similarly urge you to exclude from the Legislatures final budget. In particular, we respectfully request that you omit: Changes to vehicle registration procedures which charge the RMV with ascertaining proof of legal residence a legal standard requiring interpretation that the RMV is not resourced to provide. This provision, by requiring an RMV-issued license or ID number for vehicle registration, could also bar foreign-licensed persons with driving privileges under treaty, but without RMV-issued IDs, from registering vehicles purchased in our state. Changes to criminal penalties for driving or identification related offenses, including a provision allowing for high fines and lengthy prison time for a new crime of making, forging or counterfeiting, with intent to distribute, RMV-issued identification documents. MassHealth expenditures reporting requirements which could require the Office of Medicaid to divert resources away from member services and towards potentially time-consuming data analysis.

Massachusetts, like every state, is grappling with the current failure of the federal government to pass humane and comprehensive immigration reform. The prudent course of action is to encourage our federal Congress to act, rather than to adopt policies seeking to promote attrition through enforcement or self-deportation. Policies that discriminate against immigrants risk conflicting with federal immigration law and with our states own constitutional equal protection requirements. Additionally, immigration law is among the most complex areas of law, second only to tax law, and immigration enforcement budget amendments may inflict unintentional harms due to inadequate consideration of the complexity and fluidity of the dozens of federally-conferred immigration statuses, the numerous and varied documents that may evidence immigration status, the prevalence of mixed status households, the lack of congruity between lawful immigration status and eligibility for social security numbers, and many other factors. Budget amendments often cannot receive the same thorough consideration afforded bills through the committee process. It is therefore dangerous to make policy changes that impact peoples access to employment, housing, transportation and even their liberty and family unity, through the compressed timeline of redrafted budget amendments with limited public input or transparency. These policy changes could also subject our state to costly, protracted litigation. In January 2012, the Supreme Judicial Court struck down, in Finch v. Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, 4 an instance of discrimination on the basis of alienage as a violation of Massachusettss constitutional equal protection requirements. However, this vindication of equal protection principles occurred only after tens of thousands of documented, taxpaying immigrants had been for over two years unconstitutionally denied the ability to purchase Commonwealth Care health insurance due a provision in the FY2010 budget. We ask that you avert the need for similar litigation challenging provisions, such as that altering public housing eligibility, in this years budget, by excluding the aforementioned policy changes. We once again respectfully recommend that you exclude all of Senate Amendment GOV 128.1 and those provisions of House Amendment 538.1 which would alter current law from the Legislatures final budget, and we urge you to continue to fund programs that promote integration, self-sufficiency of immigrants, and safe and healthy communities for all. Thank you for considering our views. Sincerely,

Eva A. Millona Executive Director

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461 Mass. 232, January 5, 2012.

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