The Journal reported last Dec. 27 that Rhode Island lost 3,800 people between July 2006 and July 2007. This was seen as a wake-up call about the economy.

Apparently Governor Carcieri is still asleep because he is doing everything possible for 40,000 undocumented workers in the state to leave as a result of his executive order forcing anyone doing business with the state to verify the immigration status of their workers. He is also supporting Rep. Todd Brien’s proposal to extend the rule to all employers in the state. Our economy is already sick. Both of these ill-informed public servants advocate for the equivalent of bloodletting in order to heal the patient.

I want to believe the governor when he says he is not anti-immigrant. However, his concept of the immigrant community stands in stark contrast to the realities of families and relationships. Thousands of small businesses and jobs are created by the growth of immigrant communities. More than two in three children in undocumented households are citizens by virtue of birth, and unless we change the Constitution they have every right of citizenship, and anything that threatens the stability of their family is a threat to their health. This inseparable nexus of undocumented parents with citizen children is at the heart of what constitutes the immigrant community as one body, regardless of immigration status. A threat to one is a threat to all.

Last year, an immigrant couple in Oklahoma held on to their U.S.-born baby for 10 days until he died of an intestinal obstruction. Had he been taken to the hospital sooner he would have lived. The parents feared deportation under an immigration policy similar to Carcieri’s, in which state agencies and the police enforce immigration laws.

Both Arizona and Oklahoma, states that have implemented similar laws, have seen their pace of growth come to a halt as a result of thousands of immigrant families, documented and undocumented, leaving the state in fear and in droves. Rhode Island’s economy could probably not withstand such an exodus.

Talk-radio zealots and extremists will celebrate, but business and the economy will suffer irreparable harm if Latinos vote with their feet and abandon the state. Be careful what you wish.

PABLO RODRIGUEZ, M.D.

Warwick

The writer is chairman of Latino Public Radio.