PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union has accused Governor Carcieri’s administration of trying to end-run a court ruling that it had improperly tried to require businesses that deal with the state to verify their employees are not illegal aliens.

The ACLU said yesterday it has asked the Superior Court to either find the administration in contempt of that ruling or to issue a temporary order barring the imposition of the verification rule as a purported “emergency” measure.

The issue has its roots in an executive order cracking down on illegal immigration. The governor’s order mandated, in part, that state contractors use a federal screening system called E-Verify to determine whether their newer employees are legally in the country. Failure to do so would jeopardize their state business.

The ACLU appealed that order to the Superior Court. In September, while refusing the ACLU’s request for a temporary order barring the verification mandate, Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer said the Department of Administration “more likely than not … illegally circumvented” provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act for promulgating such rules. Pfeiffer said the state could not impose that rule without following the terms of that act.

Steven Brown, the ACLU affiliate’s executive director, said in a statement yesterday that the organization learned recently that the state, while commencing the rule-making process “also adopted ‘emergency’ regulations for the program, to take effect immediately, thus circumventing the advance notice and comment mandate.”

Named as defendants in the ACLU’s new complaint are the governor and Jerome Williams, director of the Department of Administration.

“We believe the case to be wholly without merit and will respond accordingly,” Amy Kempe, the governor’s spokeswoman, said when asked for comment yesterday. Kempe said the emergency regulation is in place for only 120 days and that a public hearing on a permanent regulation has been scheduled for later this year.

The ACLU said the Administrative Procedures Act allows adoption of emergency regulations only if necessary to address an “imminent peril to the public health, safety or welfare.”

The ACLU says that, to justify the emergency regulations, the state cited:

•July’s raids at several Rhode Island state courthouses in which 32 janitors who worked for two contracting companies were detained. They were accused of being in the county illegally.

•Rhode Island’s unemployment rate — most recently, the nation’s worst.

The ACLU calls the justifications “specious” and said it has been seven months since the executive order was issued and three months since the raids.

The brief asks the court to find the state in contempt or to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the regulations from being carried out.

A motion hearing is slated for tomorrow, the ACLU said.

mmckinne@projo.com