An overflow crowd watches yesterday’s proceedngs on a TV set up in the hall.

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The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — The immigration debate that has dominated Rhode Island’s political consciousness in recent weeks made its way to the State House last night, as lawmakers reviewed a spate of bills that would crack down on illegal immigration.

In hours of testimony that stretched late into the night, the House Judiciary Committee heard comments on bills that would block illegal immigrants from getting driver’s licenses, housing assistance and punish businesses and state agencies that hire them, effectively taking Governor Carcieri’s recent executive order a step further.

A second set of proposals that would prevent businesses and local officials such as landlords from asking questions about a person’s immigration status and protect employers from prosecution in such situations was also heard.

Only one bill, considered in a separate House Labor Committee hearing, won passage last night. A plan that would require all nongovernmental employers in Rhode Island to participate in the federal employment-verification program, and fine those who do not, received unanimous approval from committee members. But because of the sheer volume of bills that were heard in the Judiciary hearing –– more than 10 in total –– observers noted it was difficult to properly evaluate the merits of any one of them and doubted that any had a chance of moving forward.

Instead, the evening took on significance for its civility. Advocates, who have clashed at news conferences, on talk radio and in the newspaper in the two weeks since Governor Carcieri announced his executive order requiring state agencies and vendors to verify the legal status of all employees, last night offered opinions, but not anger.

“I would like to caution all of us going forward that there’s no need for name calling and there’s no need for pointing fingers,” Rep. Richard Singleton, I-Cumberland, said in presenting four bills that would curb illegal immigration.

The day began very differently. Peter G. Palumbo, D-Cranston, whose bill takes a rigorous stance against illegal immigration, began the day by announcing that twice this week someone had driven by his Garden City home yelling obscenities to his wife and child about his bill and presumably about his stance on immigration.

Concerned that last night’s hearing could take on a contentious tone, more than a half-dozen state police officers and Capitol Police officers staked out the building, but found they were mostly unneeded. Roughly 100 people turned out, about 75 of them scheduled to testify.

Last night, Palumbo presented his own take of on why undocumented immigrants is costing Rhode Island millions of dollars each year: illegal immigrants, he said, crowd the Adult Correctional Institutions, they join gangs and in the worst of circumstances, they engage in dangerous criminal activity. Citing statistics he said were from the U.S. Department of Education, Palumbo said undocumented children cost Rhode Island schools more than $87 million in 2004.

The governor’s office has previously said it is difficult to measure just how much of a financial burden illegal immigrants place on any one area of state government. A Journal analysis of costs to state and local governments found that little data exists.

Critics including Thomas C. Slater, D-Providence, questioned Palumbo’s numbers, which he said were “just not all there.”

“The truth is undocumented immigrants make up less than two to less than four percent of the overall population in Rhode Island so it’s just not possible that undocumented immigrants are capable of such a huge impact in terms of the fiscal situation in the state,” said Ellen Gallagher of the International Institute of Rhode Island.

Committee member Timothy S. Williamson, D-West Warwick, posed some of the night’s toughest questions, grilling Palumbo on how the state would enforce laws requiring businesses to crack down on illegal immigrants without violating the civil rights of people who are in this country legally.

“The question today is about whether this bill is just targeting Hispanics?” he asked.

Those opposed to the legislation, and to Governor Carcieri’s executive order, last night had many of the same concerns. How do you get tough, without descending into racial profiling, or outright racism?

But advocates of tougher immigration laws offered a different set of questions. After telling legislators about the hurdles her son’s fiancée had to clear to move here legally from Japan, Jan Hopp said: “No one should come to this country illegally and expect this country to provide benefits which are meant to help the citizens and legal residents of America.

“Where do they think this money is coming from?” she asked. “In this time of fiscal crisis, shouldn’t we be spending our resources on those that are here legally, rather than those who chose to come here illegally.”

As the House Judiciary hearing wore into its fifth hour long past 10 p.m., Rhode Islanders on both sides of the immigration debate were still waiting to offer their testimony. They were exhausted and frustrated, but determined.

Representative Singleton applauded their commitment to the conversation, whatever their perspective.

“This is not a subject that’s about Latinos or Mexicans or Guatemalans or any other group of people. This is about the rule of law governing a state, fiscal policy, that’s what we’re talking about today,” he said. “We’re lawmakers. That’s what we do. If there were 12 or 20 million Irish people where my ancestors come from, I would be equally concerned about their undocumented or legal presence in this country.”

cneedham@projo.com