Senate OKs bill to allow driver's licenses for Dreamers

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Legislation to preserve the right of “Dreamers” to get Rhode Island driver’s licenses, regardless of what ultimately happens at the national level, won state Senate approval on a 32-to-2 vote on Wednesday.

There are about 1,200 Rhode Islanders enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and their legal status depends on a series of battles playing out in the White House, Congress and the courts. President Donald Trump repealed the order establishing the DACA program last year, leaving the Dreamers in limbo while court challenges to the repeal proceed.

Under the provisions of the legislation sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey, those brought to the U.S. as children by parents here illegally, and who were granted reprieves from deportation by the DACA program, could still get R.I. driver’s licenses. The licenses would "not confer the right to vote in the state of Rhode Island," the bill says.

The legislation now moves to the House, which had passed its own version earlier.

One after another, the senators rose from their seats Wednesday to hail the passage of the legislation as both a necessary — and compassionate — gesture to people who came of age in Rhode Island, after having been brought here by parents in this country illegally.

The newest member of the Senate, Sandra Cano of Pawtucket, who became a U.S. citizen in 2007, thanked McCaffrey for "his leadership in bringing us this wonderful legislation" and said, the bill "is really dear to my heart and for my community." 

"As many of you already know, my family fled from Colombia when my father's life was threatened. I was just a teenager when we came here, but now I love my state. I love my country. This is why it is called the 'American Dream' because everyone can be someone no matter where they come from."

'There are many, many more Dreamers in Rhode Island who only want to study hard, work hard, and give back to the state just like I did,'' said Cano, who joined the Senate in mid-session after winning a special election for the seat vacated by former Sen. James Doyle.

A second Pawtucket Democrat — Sen. Donna Nesselbush — called the legislation essential to people who came "through no fault of their own" to the United States and more specifically, a state that does "not have a robust system of public transit.

"When I see these people on bicycles in the middle of winter, I immediately know they are the undocumented among us, who can't drive,'' Nesselbush said. "Allowing these Dreamers to have a driver's license, in my opinion, is essentially a basic human right... I hope that someday we are here on driver's licenses for all undocumented, but we leave that for another day."

"We can't blame a baby for something their parents did,'' echoed Sen. Elizabeth Crowley, D-Central Falls.

In other action, the Senate also approved a bill to add immunity from prosecution — under the state's Good Samaritan law — to someone who calls for emergency medical help for an underage drinker. 

The Senate also passed legislation setting the stage for the unionization of private home-care workers. Among the backers: the Service Employees International Union 1199NE.

The bill would also give the state Executive Office of Health & Human Services the power to set Medicaid reimbursement rates for those who help the elderly and disabled with basic daily activities — such as eating, bathing, dressing and making it to and from the toilet — that enable them to stay in their own homes. 

Echoing the law that led to the unionization of child-care workers, it would allow a union to negotiate "reimbursement rates and other economic matters... [including] benefits."