Rhode Island news
8 make resignations official
01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, August 16, 2008
PROVIDENCE — Eight members of the governor’s Hispanic Advisory Commission finalized their resignations from that committee yesterday, with one likening Governor Carcieri’s executive order to “social genocide.”
In an impassioned news conference, vice chairwoman Jennie Rosario said the departing members were voicing a vote of no confidence in Governor Carcieri because they could no longer work with him.
Her words were met with resounding applause in the same State House room where five months ago the governor first signed his executive order cracking down on illegal immigration.
“There was a high, high level of trust and disposition to work as a family [with the governor] so it’s very difficult now to make this kind of a statement,” Rosario said.
She and other members said they felt strongly that they were “entitled to more consideration,” given that Carcieri sought them out to serve on the commission.
Yet the governor, they said, seemed unwilling to listen to them or heed their advice.
“We are not here, let me remark, to defend any kind of illegality, we are here to defend the human and civil rights of the community at large that has contributed to the well-being in Rhode Island,” Rosario said.
It was Juan Garcia who likened the executive order to “social genocide,” saying the governor’s actions have increased racial profiling and ratcheted up the level of fear among legal immigrants, some of whom have begun to leave the state.
The resigning members are Jaime Aguayo, Jorge F. Cardenas, Garcia, Mario Mancebo, Elida Picard, Magdalena Picot, Rosario and Bruno J. Sukys.
Sukys also resigned several weeks ago from a separate governor’s advisory group that is monitoring implementation of the executive order on illegal immigrants.
The Rev. Eliseo Nogueras, the group’s chairman, is one of four commissioners who have decided to stay on; the three others are Dr. Antonio Barajas, Ray Guzman and Rebecca Flores.
Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe has said the governor “appreciates the service of the individuals to the commission, their commitment to the promotion of the Hispanic and Latino community and to the State of Rhode Island.”
“The Hispanic community is an important part of the fabric of the Rhode Island community and they will continue to have a voice in the Carcieri administration,” she has said.
Yesterday’s resignations came after several days of false starts. Commissioners last week accidentally issued a news release announcing their resignation.
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