By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — The ACLU wants a Superior Court judge to halt Gov. Donald Carcieri’s controversial executive order on illegal immigration.       

“The executive order  is profoundly unwise and ill-advised as a matter of policy and, at least in part, is defective as a matter of law,” attorney Randy Olen said in a written statement announcing the lawsuit.  The ACLU is seeking a restraining order to prevent the administration from further implementing provisions of the order.
Carcieri’s executive order, issued last March, touched a spark to the powerful powderkeg of illegal immigration issues. He ordered all executive departments and all individuals and businesses with state contracts to use the federal E-Verify system, which is operated by the Department of Homeland Security to determine job eligibility based on immigration status.
It also calls on law enforcement entities to work with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to deal with individuals in the criminal justice system who are in the country illegally.
Religious leaders including Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin, immigrant activists and even the Providence police chief have protested the order, saying it casts a pall on legal as well as illegal immigrants and could prevent victims from reporting crime or witnesses telling police what they know.
“The E-Verify requirement far exceeds the governor’s constitutional authority, essentially attempts to create laws which directly conflict with specific statutes properly enacted by the General Assembly, and creates an unconstitutional impairment of existing contracts.” Olen wrote. “Whatever the motives behind the governor’s attempt to address the issue of illegal immigration may be, the executive order’s attempt to legislate by executive fiat is clearly unlawful.”
“We don’t have a monarchy,” ACLU executive director Steven Brown said Wednesday when asked about the suit. He said Carcieri exceeded his authority by extending the E-Verify requirement to private businesses and the order “contradicts specific statutory provisions.”
Brown said a hearing on the request for a temporary restraining order will likely be heard on Monday. The plaintiffs in the suit are the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and two Rhode Island College professors, Daniel Weisman and Ann Marie Mumm.
This is the second of Carcieri’s executive orders to be challenged in court in recent weeks. Just last week, Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams effectively upheld a restraining order issued by Superior Court Judge Patricia Hurst preventing the governor from implementing health benefit plan changes and higher insurance co-pays on members of Council 94 AFSCME. Those members had rejected the health care-related provisions as part of a proposed contract settlement.
Weisman said he brought the complaint to the ACLU after receiving a letter from the Department of Administration saying he would lose an unspecified state contract if he did not comply with the E-Verify requirement of the executive order.
Weisman said he was born in the United States and there is no question he is a citizen, but said he felt that “I had to resist.
“It’s not about me, it is about how and when you stand up when there is an event you think is hurtful to people and inappropriate public policy. That is why I did what I did,” Weisman said.
Weisman, who teaches research at RIC’s School of Social Work, said he has contracts to oversee several programs in various departments. He said he does not know which one triggered the letter from the DOA, but noted that several colleagues overseeing some of the same programs did not get letters.
He said he does not have employees, but his contracts allow him to hire people to do data entry work or  to participate in focus groups. Those individuals would have to go through E-Verify under the governor’s order.
Weisman said his students who are first-generation Americans thought the order “was a direct attack on their acceptance as people here.”
Deborah DeBare, director of the RICADV, said the order does not require them to screen clients through E-Verify, but does mandate checks of new employees.
“Our agency prides itself on its diverse staff,” she said. “We are concerned that mandatory use of the E-Verify program may discourage some applicants, particularly foreign-born citizens, from applying, due to E-Verify’s high error rate. We also provide funds to a number of subcontractors and we will have to expend significant time and effort if we are required to assure that all of them register with and continue to use E-Verify.”
Perhaps as an indication of some of the confusion surrounding the executive order, DeBare stressed that “it is still safe to call for help. E-Verify has nothing to do with client services.
“There is so much misinformation in the community about E-Verify and immigrants concerned about deportation that it is fueling false information,” she said. “We are hearing in the community that some victims might be afraid to call the shelter for help because they are afraid their background will be checked into. Regardless of someone’s immigration status, our shelters are there to make sure people are safe.”
Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe brushed off the ACLU suit as being “completely without merit.” She said the governor was “well within his constitutional and statutory authority” in issuing the executive order.
When it was pointed out that Carcieri thought he was within his constitutional and statutory authority in issuing the Council 94 executive order, Kempe said, “Those are two completely different situations. The executive order was carefully crafted and patterned to follow the law and kept the mandates within the purview of executive branch authority.”
Kempe said the administration will fight the challenge in court.