Immigration forum tomorrow at RIC

Not long after the arrest of two DMV officials the other day, some cranks called in to talk-radio, blathering about how the uber-liberal Providence Journal was supposedly going to report the news in a very myopic way, making it seem as if the state police were oppressing poor minorities. Yeah, right.

A forum tomorrow at Rhode Island College -- on the legal and illegal impact of immigration in Rhode Island -- seems likely to shed a lot more insight on the subject. Here are the details:

An impartial public forum, Legal and Illegal – The Impact of Immigration on Rhode Island, will be offered by the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island (LWV-RI) from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, October 13, in Gaige Hall at Rhode Island College (RIC) off Mt. Pleasant Avenue in Providence.

First, experts will present briefly facts about RI’s history of immigration and its current impact upon education, health care and the economy as well as the local impact of proposed policy reforms, and answer written questions from the audience. Over boxed lunches, audience participants will then share their personal experiences with those facts in diverse small group discussions led and later reported by RI media personnel.

 

RIC Professor Emeritus of Geography Chester A. Smolski will speak on America’s and RI’s history of immigration; Providence Superintendent of Schools Donnie W. Evans, on its current impact on RI’s education; RI Kids Count Deputy Director Catherine B. Walsh, on RI’s health care; RI Division of Adult Education Director Johan Uvin, on RI’s economy; and International Institute of RI Director William Shuey, on the local impact of proposed policy reforms.

. . . .

 

 A $15 registration fee ($10 for students; ten scholarships available) includes coffee and lunch . . . This forum is part of the League’s impartial study of immigration which will reach a consensus among its members statewide this fall and nationally next spring, upon a principled position for which the organization can and will then advocate. Such local, statewide and national studies of public policy issues underlie the League’s credibility which, pre-2000 polls indicate, is second to that of the U.S. Supreme Court.

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For more information, contact forum moderator Marie C. Hennedy, Ph.D., at mariehennedy@verizon.net.