E-Mail This Article to a Friend Xeno warrior Governor Romney’s recent budget vetoes, coupled with a poor track record on immigrant issues, could cost him votes in 2006 BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

LATE IN THE MONTH of June, during the height of the fiscal year (FY) 2005 budget process, Governor Mitt Romney trained his cross hairs on an easy political target — the immigrant community. On June 25, in the midst of a relatively modest $108.5 million line-item budget veto, Romney hammered away at two provisions that would have benefited elderly and disabled legal immigrants, as well as undocumented immigrant youths. The action, coupled with a series of policies pursued by the governor since he took office in January 2003, goes a long way toward solidifying what has come to be seen as the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.

On that June 25 afternoon, while attempting to balance the state’s $24.8 billion budget for FY ’05, the governor wiped away the $5 million in funding for health-care benefits for elderly and disabled "special status" immigrants — those who live here legally, but have been here for less than five years or are living under temporary protection while awaiting asylum or refugee status. The money was earmarked by the legislature to continue health coverage for only 2800 immigrants who earn less than $17,964 a year, and it represented a mere fraction of the total $6 billion budget for Medicaid, the joint state-federal health-care program for the poor. But the governor eliminated the item anyway.

At the same time, Romney rejected another immigrant-related provision that would have enabled an estimated 400 undocumented youths who have lived in this state for at least three years and who graduate from Massachusetts high schools to qualify for resident-tuition rates (an average of $970 a year) at state colleges. Currently, such immigrant teens must pay the costlier average nonresident-tuition rate of $7050 a year.

With the June 25 vetoes, Romney conspicuously did away with the only immigrant-specific provisions in the state’s entire FY ’05 budget. Yet he and his officials defend the cuts as sound public policy. The administration justifies its move to slash health coverage for legal immigrants by noting that the federal government cut off such benefits to this population in 1996. Back then, Massachusetts, under the auspices of former Republican governor William Weld, recognized how harmful this was, and began to pay for legal immigrants’ care with state funds.

Now, according to Romney’s communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, the administration has "decided that it was time to conform to the federal standard." In other words, the administration wants Massachusetts to forget its seven-year commitment to provide benefits to legal immigrants, and instead adopt a federal policy passed during the height of anti-immigrant fervor on Capitol Hill. Likewise, Fehrnstrom presents the governor’s opposition to in-state tuition rates for undocumented youths as a sensible response to illegal immigration. He explains, "We don’t think it’s good policy to provide state benefits to people who are hiding from the law."

Reaction from immigrant advocates has been swift. Ali Noorani, the executive director of the Boston-based Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), describes the governor’s vetoes as "vindictive" and "targeted." As it stands, advocates argue, Romney has killed two measures that would have assisted the most worthy segments of the state’s 900,000-strong immigrant population: frail seniors and disabled individuals who came to this country legally and who have abided by the law; and foreign-born teens who arrived here because of their parents, not on their own.

Although the legislature failed to override the governor’s vetoes before ending its formal session on July 31, both provisions have enjoyed broad legislative support — indeed, the state Senate passed the in-state-tuition measure by a unanimous vote. And neither of them represents big-money items for the Commonwealth. The Romney administration has actually projected a surplus in the state’s Medicaid account of $75 million — well over the $5 million needed to continue caring for elderly and disabled legal immigrants. Meanwhile, were it enacted, the in-state-tuition item would have generated an additional $1.1 million in tuition for state colleges, according to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, which had endorsed the bill.

Given the benefits associated with these two budget items, the June 25 vetoes have left immigrants and their legislative allies with "the clear message that the governor does not support immigrants," says Noorani. That message is reinforced by a review of Romney’s record on immigration issues over the past 18 months. From gutting special programs for legal immigrants to blocking bills providing drivers’ licenses to undocumented aliens, Romney’s efforts show a pattern: rather than embrace initiatives that help improve the lives of immigrants, the administration is ignoring their needs at best, discounting their needs at worst. One State House player and long-time advocate for immigrant programs sums up the sentiment best: "This administration has clearly shown an insensitivity toward immigrants and Latinos — if not a downright anti-immigrant attitude."

In many ways, the governor’s strained relationship with the immigrant community began even before he assumed the corner office. As a Republican candidate in the 2002 gubernatorial race, Romney aggressively championed the controversial ballot question scrapping bilingual-education programs in the state’s public-school system — otherwise known as the Unz Initiative, named after the California businessman, Ron Unz, who had promoted it. Many immigrants, says Juan Vega, the executive director of Centro Latino de Chelsea, viewed the ballot question as an "anti-immigrant, one-size-fits-all" reform plan. But that didn’t stop Romney from making it one of the top issues in his campaign platform.

In the end, approximately 70 percent of Massachusetts residents voted in favor of the Unz Initiative, which Fehrnstrom characterizes as "pro-immigrant" and "an act of empowerment that will better prepare young immigrant children for America’s highly competitive economic marketplace." The crusade, however, did little for Romney’s standing among the state’s Latinos. Indeed, according to polling data gathered on Election Day 2002 by UMass Boston’s Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy, up to 93 percent of Latino voters cast ballots against the Unz Initiative, while 86 percent of them threw their support behind Romney’s Democratic rival, Shannon O’Brien, who had opposed the ballot question. By contrast, Romney captured only 6.5 percent of the Latino vote — less than the 7.8 percent garnered by the Green Party’s Jill Stein. "So right out of the gate," Vega says, "the governor’s relationship with immigrants wasn’t very positive."

Things haven’t gotten much better since. In the past 18 months, in fact, Romney has generated quite a conservative record on a host of immigrant matters. There was, for instance, his fight against preserving "two-way bilingual" programs in the state’s public schools. The innovative classes, which exist in 11 schools, enroll young children who speak Spanish with peers who speak English as a way to teach both languages. The voter-approved Unz Initiative would have wiped out these programs, even though they boast an enrollment of 1800 students and a lengthy waiting list. Last year, House and Senate members passed a provision in the FY ’04 budget exempting the two-way bilingual programs from the state’s new English-immersion law. Romney vetoed the item, blasting it as "watered-down English immersion."

When legislators overrode his veto, Romney kept up the fight. In July 2003, he publicly vowed to oust those legislators who had backed the move. (Interestingly, when First Lady Laura Bush came to town to court Latino voters last month, Romney escorted her to the Kelly School, in Chelsea, where the two sat in on a two-way bilingual program for a photo opportunity.)

Then came the effort to kill a bill allowing undocumented aliens to receive drivers’ licenses. In recent years, immigrant-advocacy groups have been working to build support for such a concept across Massachusetts. The rationale? The state needs a system registering every single resident, including the estimated 150,000 undocumented immigrants who already live, work, and drive here. Last fall, recalls Elena Letona, the director of Centro Presente, in Cambridge, police chiefs had just begun to embrace the measure. Lawmakers had agreed to sponsor the legislation. Officials at the state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles were warming up to the idea. But then, in October 2003, the governor announced that he would oppose the bill, effectively derailing its momentum. "As soon as he came out and said, ‘No,’" Letona says, "it was like a blow to our movement."