 Welcome to Bunker Hill Community College and welcome to tonight's forum for gubernatorial candidates on issues affecting immigrations and immigrant communities. My name is pleased to host and co-sponsored this conversation tonight. Immigrants are the single fastest growing demographic in our Commonwealth, which now includes over a million residents from a hundred nations. That's 15 percent of our residents and 18 percent of our workforce. Bunker Hill Community College with our 14,000 students closely reflects this growing trend in the urban areas of Massachusetts you will see in our microcosm. The language acquisition, educational opportunities, housing, health and welfare, or balancing acculturation and integration with the preservation of home cultures and practices that makes us unique and uniquely American. While immigrants play a key role in the economic and social history of our state, we are frequently viewed as burdens, easily forgotten and sometimes maligned. Even when immigrants stand up as they did Thursday when a thousand marches shut down Boylston Street over the issue of housing miners fleeting Central America it is hard to attract the attention of mainstream media. So we welcome the candidates for the top office of our great Commonwealth tonight to speak to those issues. Bunker Hill is pleased to serve as that marketplace of ideas where our candidates can tell us about their vision of America's promise and delineate the path to get there. Now I would like to thank a long list of cosponsors and by the very diversity and richness of this list communicate to our candidates that this is a vital issue for our Commonwealth. So tonight we thank Mira, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, who is the main anchor for tonight's event, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, Emerson College's Elmer Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Health Care for All, the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers, the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Mass Vote, and we also want to note that this venue is endorsed by English for North Bostonians, the Immigrant Lab at Boston College and the Massachusetts Association of Hispanic Attorneys. Now our audience should note that tonight's program is being live streamed and photographed by Emerson College. So for those of you who are camera shy, please note where our cameras are so you can avoid them. Now let me introduce to you our moderator for our conversation tonight, Mr. Philip Martin. Mr. Martin is the Senior Investigative Reporter for WGBH FM. And since joining WGBH in 2010, Mr. Martin has reported on human trafficking in Southern New England, carbon offset schemes, police training and race, the Occupy Movement, and the fishing industry in New England. He is a regular panelist on WGBH TV for Basic Block and an occasional panelist for Beat the Press. As you can see, Mr. Martin does not shy away from issues and has for many, many years injected a caring and proping voice into local and national journalism. His story on human trafficking has earned him an Edward R. Morrill Award and that would be his second in his career. So please help me welcome Mr. Philip Martin. Thank you Dr. Edinger. Look folks, I know this setting it looks like I want to say come on down, you know, but this is a very serious event tonight. It's the only gubernatorial candidates debate that's focused on immigration. Immigration is an emotional issue and we know it very well because of the makeup of our own community as Dr. Edinger just said and it's also been brought to light in a very fundamental and emotional way because of what's been happening on the US-Mexico border of late. There's always something happening on the US-Mexico border but of late, of course, it's focused greatly on children and has provoked outcry on many sides of this contentious issue. Here in Massachusetts, of course, we have our own issues and policies affecting the immigrant communities. I will be inviting the six candidates to join me one at a time for 15 minutes each and there are four questions. We're going to stick strictly to this to this timetable is very important and to stick strictly to this timetable we have the leading with the best name in the house, Summer. Summer, if you could stand it for just a second. Summer is going to basically be keeping time and we're going to stick closer to this schedule. Now, obviously there are a lot of questions that we would like to ask but there are four questions that we're going to definitely ask of our distinguished candidates and we're going to begin with Don Burwick who is a pediatrician by trade who most recently served as President of Obama's head of Medicaid and Medicare and is now seeking to win the Democratic primary for governor. Dr. Burwick, if you would join me here. I've set up my own microphone. I wouldn't be the reporter that I hope I am without trying to record this myself, would I? First of all, I want to welcome all of you and I'm going to also ask you to, you can certainly applaud, but I'm going to ask you to restrain from questions or insertions or anything of that sort. We're going to focus on the candidates and their questions and answers. I'm going to start with a story. As a reporter we tell stories and this story is about a fella named Josue and he's a member of the committee Deficitos in Fitchburg. Now, he was driving home one night of one late afternoon, I should say, from a picnic and he was with his wife, five children and he was stopped by the state police and they told him his registration had expired. As they looked into it, apparently his registration had not expired. However, he was driving without a license. That's obviously problematic and so he was taken into police custody. Now, immigration officials issued a detainer to the police and Josue was held in detention, immigration detention for five months. This gentleman was released with an ankle bracelet in August of last year around this time after a major public outcry from various communities asking that he be allowed to keep his family together and not be held in detention, not be deported. Now, tomorrow Josue will go to an appointment with ICE and he's worried that he may be ordered to leave the country and of course in leaving the country he leaves his family. So we understand that his children, and this is not surprising if suffered psychologically from this traumatic experience and that his family is terrified of the police more than ever. So the question I ask you, sir, if Governor, what would you say to Josue and how would you use your position to ensure that Massachusetts public safety policies promote the safety of all residents and do not lead to family separation or what some consider racial profiling in this regard? Well, first of all, thank you for having me here. I very much appreciate it. My brother went to Bunker Hill Community Colleges and benefited greatly from it so I appreciate the host and Mira, it's a very important set of topics we're talking about. My campaign is based on values that I think we need to recenter the country on social justice, equality, compassion. Those are the three words I keep repeating. What I think I've been taught is there's no such thing as an illegal person. And once someone like this man is among us, they have human rights and we have to protect them. The Secure Communities Act is misnamed. It's an insecure community act. It causes the kind of fear that that story would invoke anyone here that was afraid of their status here. I support the trust act. My endorser Jamie Eldridge, Senator Jamie Eldridge is a sponsor. I applaud what Mayor Kurtitoni has done in Somerville and implementing the trust act administratively. If I were a woman, I would encourage that to happen all over this Commonwealth. People need to know they can live securely and not in fear. And if they're among us, they're of us. And I feel deeply about that. And this plays out in so many ways that I've now seen on the campaign trail. And for example, the tremendous inequity and violence in our own alleged criminal justice system in African-American in this state has nine times the chance of being imprisoned as a white. Latino has six times the chance. We have the constant patterns of undercutting equality of access, especially for people of color, people of immigrant communities, and people among us who really need help. And that man needs help and his governor, he'll get it. Now, how exactly would you help him, you say, as governor? First of all, I think we need to implement the trust act in the state. If not, we can't do it through a legislature. If the legislature approves it, it has to be done administratively. We need people to feel secure. They have to access to driver's licenses in state tuition. We have to create opportunities for people like this man so that he can enter the economy. He needs help to make sure that his opportunities to participate in the economy are real and there. And as governor, I'll be supporting vocational training programs, job training programs, English language learning, if that's relevant. So he has a pathway into the economy and isn't sectored off, isn't regarded as other. Okay. Thank you. Let's move to the next question. And this question is focused on the new Americans agenda, which you may have heard about. Massachusetts has had a long history of integrating immigrants from all areas of the world, represented by the folks in this very room, from everywhere, including refugees who have fled for their survival, those who've benefited from being home to one of the most diverse immigrant populations in the nation. Dr. Burr, what policies would you put in place as governor to discourage nativist legislative proposals like those we've seen in Arizona and in Georgia, and frankly, some of the proposals that have occurred here in Massachusetts? And what policies would you put in place to position new Americans, new Americans to succeed in our state? Well, it begins in the administration positioning people from the immigrant communities in the administration. If I'm governor, we will have an administration that reflects the complexion and the background of this commonwealth. People need to feel that they're hurt and can participate. So many people around this commonwealth, when I leave the room and say, don't forget us, they feel forgotten. For immigrants, they're a mean stay of our economy. A million people here, one 15 percent of our population, 18 percent of our workforce, 60 percent of the businesses, the new businesses and master shoes that are started by first generation immigrants. They need help. Among the forms of help are language access. Half of the immigrants in this state have trouble with language to get into the economy. And we have 20,000 people on waiting lists for English as a second language laying and for appropriate instruction to be able to get into the economy. As governor, I will make sure that that waiting list is cleared and people don't have language as a barrier. New immigrant businesses need support. They need help to get set up. They will have that help from governor. They also, in some cases, will need assistance in negotiating through licensing and zoning laws. So I want to foster immigrant businesses. They're extremely important to our economic future. Okay, I switched the questions up a little bit, but you transitioned perfectly because this question is about inclusive access to state services, including language access. So if elected governor, what would you do to ensure your administration is compliant with language access requirements and that all residents can access public information and communicate with all state agencies? And how would you sustain Massachusetts commitment to inclusive access to health care, education and social services, perhaps elaborating as you started to do? Yeah, I would treat it in these two tears, adult access and K-12 education. It's really important for people to have access and language, language as a barrier is really a key issue. So for the adult population here of immigrants, we need to beef up, we need to have an adequate supply of education to get into the economy with English as a second language, English acquisition skills, and as I say, assistance in businesses. They need access to public education system here. The average age of someone using a community college in this commonwealth is 29 years, adults use it, and to be able to support a place like Booker Hill to have the resources to bring people in, help them in their own language, and then transition them to English as I assume they want to is a crucial investment for this commonwealth. In community 12 education, we have the same kind of barriers. We need a targeted approach, but we need schools that where kids are having trouble with language acquisition because language, English isn't the first language, those schools need multi-lingual capabilities. The dropout rate of Latino kids in our school system, K-12 school system is 25 percent, and that is partly their lack of comfort with being in the classroom and coming in without the language skills that they need. It's also of course poverty, and I want to say something really important, which is if you drill down but beneath the problems that immigrant communities have in getting into our economy, whether they're documented or undocumented, it's poverty that's at the root of this, and my administration and my right for governor is extremely focused on the relief, and I hope we end the poverty in this commonwealth, hunger and homelessness and the barriers that immigrant communities particularly face, and we have to work very hard to make sure that the attitude of the commonwealth is to regard poverty as intolerable. 34 percent of the immigrants live below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, and I'll say one thing, the only candidate for governor appeals to casinos and for the casino repeal. Casinos are predators on people in poverty and predators, therefore on immigrant communities. They have no business being in this state. It's time to make sure we stop them with the approval of the referendum on November 4th to take away the casino law. You've obviously thought about this quite a bit. Let me ask you if you've thought about this as well. I can't imagine not having the ability to get from point A to point B, and safe driving is a huge issue, of course, within immigrant communities. Do you support allowing all Massachusetts residents to participate in the driver's licensing process regardless of immigration status? This, of course, is controversial, and if yes, what specifically would you do as governor to ensure that Massachusetts adopt such a policy? I'd follow the example of 12 other states that have adopted the policy. Absolutely. All people here, including undocumented residents, need access to driver's license. In my administration, they will have driver's license. They'll be able to get them without fear that that will result in reports to ICE or any enforcement. But this creates safer driving because you need to demonstrate that, that you have vision, and know the laws if you have a driver's license. It means people will be less frightened if they get into trouble right now. An undocumented person who gets into trouble without a driver's license is going to flee the scene. We don't want that. Insurance has to be adequate. It certainly makes sense as a matter of human right for us to welcome undocumented residents into the mainstream here, but it also makes sense for the rest of us who want a safe and orderly society. I have no question about that. I'll say one other thing. You're asking about driving, but mass transportation counts, too. This state is way behind in adequate mass transportation services. And if you're living closer to the poverty line or low levels of income, that's maybe your only option. And I think it's a very important investor for the well-being of immigrant communities in this Commonwealth, those of lower means, to make sure that we invest in a modernized, completely fit transportation system that extends the ability to move around when people want to get to and from their homes and their work. Dr. Burd, thank you very much. Okay, our next candidate is Evan Falchuk. He's an independent and a long-time health care entrepreneur and executive and now a founder of the United Independent Party under whose banner he's running for governor. Sir? You heard the story that I mentioned earlier about the fellow driving home from the picnic with his wife and children and being stopped by the state police. And I guess it's the same question I would ask you, which is, as the, I guess the key part of the story is he was detained by ICE, held for five months. It was a campaign begun by other immigrants and non-immigrants who basically helped free this individual. Now he's worried and he heads to an appointment tomorrow. He's worried about actually being not only detained but deported. If governor, what would you say to this gentleman, Josue, and how would you use your position as governor to ensure that Massachusetts public safety policies promote the safety of all residents and do not lead to family separation and what many consider racial profiling? Absolutely. Well, let me start with with another story which is about my my own father who came to this country from Venezuela and became a doctor and was able to be successful. I know that the opportunities that he had available to him were possible. Yeah, he worked very hard but also his skin was white like mine so he didn't face the same kinds of disparities that we see happening in our society and it covers so many different areas. And when you hear a story like Josue's story of being stopped, I'm not sure why but there's been plenty of data that show that a lot of these stops are racially out of whack, you know? The police are stopping people of color more so than they are someone who looks like me. And when we don't talk about these things from a public policy standpoint, they fester. And maybe it's because we're too polite or maybe because we're afraid that the issue is controversial but either way it reflects a very broken political process. His case, I mean it's heartbreaking because what we're dealing with is a federal government that has utterly failed us on this issue of immigration, completely failed us. It has a set of policies that don't make sense, they don't reflect the reality of the people that are here. It's tied to what we see in so many different issues which is what I would call cowardly political leaders who want to make cheap political points over people's lives. So what could a governor do to stop the federal government from deporting Josue? Maybe not very much if we're being honest about it. Is the federal government coming to deport someone? The state could try to block it from happening and I think in fairness that you'd want to see that kind of justice be done. But it doesn't address that underlying fundamental issue of what kind of policies do we have in place where people are being stopped, detained for five months, separated from their families, and then deported from our country. So obviously you're talking about not just about policy, you're talking about the tone as well, the tone of the discussion which also again leads to this but policy of course is that which constructs the type of attitudes that might occur within society. You can only construct those attitudes through particular policies and I'm wondering if elected government what would you do to ensure your administration? What would you do to ensure that your administration is compliant with language access requirements for example as a policy and that all residents can access public information, communicate with all state agencies that no one has left out? How would you sustain Massachusetts commitment to inclusive access for example to healthcare, education, and social services? It's very, look the Civil Rights Act requires that we do a lot of these things. So we have to, we just have to to the extent we're not and there's lots of cases where we're not doing as good a job as we, we should, we've got to do more. I know the Department of Transitional Assistance has a pretty thoughtful plan on how to make sure that people who may not understand the ins and outs from a language perspective of what they need to do to apply for benefits that they do a pretty good job of making sure that there are interpreters available for people who might need them. I think the bilingual ballot initiative which is a is a huge step forward to make sure that people are able to vote and I'm talking about citizens to feel comfortable because we have these very complicated ballot initiatives you know I wish they would translate them into plain English as well as into whatever other language is appropriate but it's it's a meaningful important step to take that recognizes the reality of of what's here but what needs to happen is we have to have leadership that's willing to talk about these things the politicization of these things and the the decadence of a political process that thinks it's okay to politicize these issues. You mentioned before this issue of the migrant children and what we saw was and I supported the governor's decision to say that Massachusetts should help the federal government in dealing with this humanitarian problem. Remember this is a law signed by President Bush that's that issue that says that the kids need to have hearings before we determine what should happen to them and what happened unfortunately was that on one side and that was unfortunate the way the governor described it he compared it to turning around a ship full of kids fleeing from the Holocaust which I don't think was helpful and on the other side we saw this appalling use of there was a rally in front of the state house people chanting things like no way Jose you know what's going on here what's happening to our country where this is the level of political discourse that we're putting ourselves through and there are candidates who are here tonight who have sought to make cheap political gain at these people's expense where are they today on these issues now that Massachusetts isn't going to be hosting these children well that's a that's a that's a question that we will have to ask you we know your position so we'll have to ask the other candidates that question as well we will hang out with you for a while now the new americans agenda important term new americans so now massachusetts as you know has had this long history of integrating immigrants Somalia the former Soviet Union Russia Ukraine central america we've we've seen this including refugees who fled here for their own survival and they benefited from being home to one of the most diverse immigrant populations in the nation what policies would you implement sir as governor to discourage what some consider nativist legislative proposals yeah well i mean i detail any kind of nativist legislative proposal like made it to my desk i think you can tell by the way i talk about these issues that would be discouraging them by just talking about them and saying holding people to account when they start to take nativist tones around these issues we've got a yes we have a history of integrating people we also have a pretty bad history not integrating people or perhaps even segregating people in massachusetts and we should be aware of that history when we think about the way we talk about issues of immigration i see immigration as this huge opportunity there are people that want to come here and make a better life which is what so many people would have come to this country did and they're doing it now even today so i see programs i don't see new immigrants as they're often portrayed as helpless victims that need or assistance sometimes they do but these are hardworking people that are providing all kinds of economic value to the commonwealth if you have to think about it in those terms the state has a role to play i've worked with a great community development corporation called enterize up in laurence because i speak spanish and they're working with entrepreneurs that are there in the city of laurence small small businesses really hardworking people maybe need some technical assistance and skills but the state has a great role to play in helping those businesses grow and thrive and prosper those are the seeds that get planted that turn into thriving blossoming communities safe driving and by the way i could tell you speak good spanish because you helped me with my pronunciation thank you very much it's a portuguese my second language portuguese that's right now do you support allowing all massachusetts residents to participate in the driver's licensing process regardless of immigration status and if yes what specifically would you do as governor to ensure that massachusetts adopts such a policy that's the international symbol for driver's license yes i support it and as a governor what i would have would want to do is propose legislation so that it would pass so that we could make this into a reality to me this is a pretty straightforward thing because we've got two classes of drivers now on the road we've got people that are licensed and insured and have taken a driver's test and we've got people who have not and if in the argument ends up being the strange thing about whether it's you know the the right to a driver's license versus these that were awarding people for legal activity so you know at that point you said why should we have any laws you know if if a person is you know they said why would the person get a driver's license if they're already breaking the immigration laws to be here well then why don't they get to do whatever they want right no it doesn't make any sense so we have to have that available and so it's a public safety issue it's pretty straightforward i mean there's even studies that show that the commonwealth would make money off of it because of the driver's license fees which are which are pretty high as it is but that's not the reason to do it it's public safety it's pretty straightforward everyone should be licensed of course some people argue differently they think that it exacerbates problems already on the streets uh yeah it's an interesting argument i mean it's and i think the under the underlying point of that argument is if we just wish hard enough and close our eyes and just really hope that things change that people that are here and living in our communities will just disappear but they're here and they're part of our communities so the choices we have as adults and this is the thing and i remind voters of this all the time america is about self-government it means when we have difficult issues there's no king or queen getting on a boat to come over here we have difficult issues we have to either deal with them ourselves or they don't get dealt with or maybe people who don't share good views about other human beings will be the ones who decide when we see that only 27 percent of voters voted in last year's election when we see that a majority of the representatives in our legislature who did not pass that safe driving bill are running on a post there's something wrong with our democracy these issues should be straightforward the appalling failure of our federal government to deal with the issue of immigration in a comprehensive way is something that should be a serious wake-up call as if there we need more wake-up calls about the need to actually take back control over the way that our government works these they're on vacation now as these problems continue and it's not right evan falchuk thank you thank you independent okay as i mentioned we're moving right along here um four questions six candidates our next candidate is mark fisher who is running in the republican primary for governor he's a self-declared tea party member in the owner of a small metal manufacturing plant at alburn mark thank you very much oh here's what we're going to do um we are that now did they um they are okay you're absolutely right that was a remiss on my part i thought we were i didn't collapse that into the time but i think they did a pretty good job of uh stating their position when you yeah okay we're fine all right uh mark fisher uh the question uh you've heard the question i mean it's been repeated before you even know this fellow's name by now and so i guess this whole notion of driving home from a picnic with your wife and uh children suddenly pulled over by the state police and you're placed in detention uh i have no doubt that many people here have feared that from from time to time the notion of of out of the blue you end up in in detention i'm wondering as governor how what would you say to this gentleman who was pulled over held in detention freed in august uh 2013 as a result of a public campaign wanting desperately to stay with his family and seeing that that possibility might be drifting away and tomorrow he has a hearing with immigration officials what is the best policy in your view as governor in the tone to set uh and in the in the statement that you would make to this gentleman so uh with hosey he's fearing uh deportation and uh in the story that you told it's not quite clear the reason that immigration is considering deportation it's not because he didn't have a driver's license um if it is we should all be rushing to his defense if it's something more serious and let's let's say that it's he's he's here illegally in the country well then we have to ask the question should anyone be deported are there reasons for deportation if no we should all be rushing to his defense if there are some reasons for deportation and let's say this is because he's here illegally in this country then hosey made the decision when he came here with his family and with his children that this was a risk that he took and maybe the great advantages that this country holds out were worth that risk but what i say is this the bond between a parent and a child is much stronger than the bond between any state and any individual if immigration feels that by enforcing the law they will have to deport hosey he will have to make that decision whether the benefits of this country are so great that he would want his wife and his family to stay here or is that bond between him and his family and his children greater and he takes them with him and maybe in a country doesn't have the great benefits that we do but still the love between that family spurs them on in any in any given situation again i don't know the situations that he's being considered for deportation and we're going to get into this in the following questions but i make a distinction and i don't think we can go forward on solutions for this immigration issue unless we come to agreement that is legal immigration the same thing as illegal immigration obviously i don't think it is and we have to come to some consensus on whether whether or not it is is there a consideration for his children in this regard regardless of what the legal status might be legal or illegal how would you take the impact on his family in consideration as governor yeah i think that that's hoseway's consideration um again if he's allowed to stay here then obviously they stay here as well but if he's deported he has to make that decision that i talked about he has to consider his family and whether it's better for them to stay here without him or whether it's better to remain as a family regardless of any situation in any dire situations is it better to them to stay as a family and that's a situation or decision for hoseway not for the governor of massachusetts if it's the if his deportation is predicated on his status that is to say on what might be determined and again i a lot of the facts aren't in if it's determined that his status is illegal should he be deported and would you support that as governor yeah here's the thing again it goes back to the situation are there reasons for deportation in his being uh coming into this country illegally one of them i would say yes i would this is a difficult situation but a country without borders is not a country at all i employ seven employees two of them are immigrants they've come here legally one just obtained her green card the other one just informed me last week that he passed his citizenship test and he's waiting to find out where he goes for his oath of uh citizenship that's entirely different from someone who goes around and doesn't follow that same path dishonors them i think there is a difference we have to recognize there's a difference between being legal and illegal so let me ask you this question uh moving to uh topic two about inclusiveness of access to state services including language access now if elected governor what would you do to ensure that your administration is compliant with language access requirements and that all residents can access public information and communicate with all state agencies whatever they might be and how would you sustain massachusetts commitment uh to inclusive access to health care education and social services great question the other candidates have had to answer it and as they were answering i was looking up behind us one of the endorsers is the immigrate the immigrant integration lab at boston college and i want to focus on integration um i think we need to say that uh in in in the united states um english it's not the law of the land that it's the the the language of the land but it's it's what we use it's what immigrants in the past have had to learn in order to integrate into our society so i would foster any opportunity and more opportunities for them to learn the language but not to keep the training wheels on longer than they're needed let's raise the bar i think i believe in the goodness of people that they want to be integrated into in the society and give them all the opportunities to do so by helping them to learn the language that's common name it not legally the the law of the land but the common language here so they can integrate better now mr fischer there was a desperation of course that is implicit in in modern immigration we see as we see on the board of us uh it's always been true of course but we see on the u.s. Mexico border uh and that question was asked here by a fellow one of your fellow candidates about your position or uh toward the children who are coming across the border and what massachusetts might have done at one point which was basically to represent the federal government's uh basically basically a lot of federal government access let's try that again but that would basically a set of housing that would be facilitated by the federal government on a temporary basis what's your view on that yeah we're i said at the rally that that evan mentioned that we are compassionate people we are a compassionate compassionate people uh we are already housing over 200 000 illegal immigrants and when i listen to the mayors of our cities and towns and how dysfunctional they're becoming because they're being overburdened with services um i'll go back to this when i came here tonight when i got on the elevator and came up to the third floor uh i opened the doors open and there's a sign in the elevator it says capacity five people um i don't know what the capacity is if there's a hard number for the state or for the country but when i listen to our cities and mayors they say we're over capacity uh and it's making our cities and towns dysfunctional the mayor of north adams says they're he's on the verge of becoming detroit and so as much as we want to be compassionate there's also capacity okay be careful the detroit i'm from detroit okay all right um this question sir the new americans of agenda as you pointed out including some of your employees we've had a long history of integrating immigrants from all areas of the world it's it's absolutely astounding when you hear the very the languages are spoken sometimes when you go to state parks uh and they've fled for their survival and they've but they've also benefited from being home to one of the most diverse immigrant populations in the in the nation what policies would you put in place as governor to discourage what many consider nativist legislative policies or proposals like those that we've seen at arizona in georgia even here in massachusetts um the immigrant population adds to the diversity and richness of our society in our in our culture um let me tell you a quick story i was at a political event with a bunch of republicans and a fellow came up to me and he said so if you're elected governor what are you gonna do for me those boats at some point have to raise their own anchor and and set the sail and take the helm but as governor i want to make things equal across the board and not cater to or pander to individual groups do you drive i do okay so this whole notion of safe driving uh a very very uh vociferous argument on both sides so my question to you is do you support allowing all massachusetts residents to participate in the driver's licensing process regardless of immigration status and if yes what specifically would you do as governor to ensure that massachusetts adopts such a policy again i i make the distinction between legal and illegal i would say yes for all those that are here legally and no for those who are here illegally i testified at the state house against that particular bill um it is uh it is a i'll say a touchy or a emotional subject there's a woman out my way who lost the son um in a drunk driving accident a legal immigrant was at the wheel but he also had a six-year-old son next to him and so when he was caught he wasn't just guilty of vehicular homicide but he was guilty of driving under the influence and not having a driver's license and a number of other things and also reckless endangerment of his six-year-old his own six-year-old child if he had a driver's license what would that have done it would only meant that he would be guilty of one less crime but if he had been prevented from coming here in the first place or done so legally this poor woman's son would still be alive so regardless of the title of the bill safe driving i don't think that it fosters safe driving okay i'm not we're going to do what uh of course we uh did not have a chance to do and that's for the previous um gubernatorial candidate it's two minute closing if you will um like i said earlier i have two employees that are here legally and i think that um any consensus about this issue has to recognize two facts one is there difference between legal and illegal immigration uh at the state house in that rally that was talked about earlier i quoted um st john paul II who said illegal immigration should be prevented you know how do we go about that how do we take about how do we care about those who are here already illegally we have to come to some consensus about that and the second thing that i would ask you all to consider is this is there a capacity can we can we afford to have an infinite number of people legally or illegally come to the state of massachusetts or come to the country and i would say that yes there is i don't know what that number is but it's these two things uh legal and illegal and is there a capacity how many can we afford listen to our mayors of our cities and towns who are saying that they're overburdened and that they just cannot handle anymore as compassionate as they want to be it's a capacity issue so i would leave the audience with those those two things please consider is there a capacity and is there a difference between legal and illegal immigration mark for sure thank you it seems seems to be a white sentiment uh let's uh now call upon steve grossman you know his name he's currently treasurer and receiver general massachusetts it was a former chairman of the democratic national committee and of the massachusetts democratic party and he topped the democratic convention vote in june in springfield okay it's a pleasure you heard the story you heard the story of this uh gentleman in um fits fitsburg uh he was driving home from the picnic um with his wife and five children we seem to know him at this point and it was stopped by the state police and told his registration was expired it was not but his life he had his he had problems with his license he was driving with a license that was problematic he was taken into police custody and he was detained for five months and released with an ankle bracelet last year tomorrow he has an appointment with ice uh mr grossman if governor what would you say to this gentleman and how would you use your position to ensure that massachusetts public safety policies promote the safety of all residents and do not need to found a separation and what many will need to be racial profiling thank you i'm delighted to be here this is a critical question and for me when you have an opportunity to take a look at something called secure communities and recognize as i have unlike our current attorney general that this is foundly problematic and has driven families apart it is torn families apart more than 50 of the people who have been deported under secure communities have had no criminal record whatsoever i think the message that i would send to him is that first of all the governor has to demonstrate moral leadership by speaking out against policies wrong-headed policies like secure communities and second of all we have role models of courageous elected officials joker to tony the mayor of the city in which i've done business and had my family business for 45 years who stood up and said henceforth we are simply not going to participate we are going to engage in a form of civil disobedience marty walsh has said equally important in the city of boston our most important city the flagship city that he also will move toward denying secure communities as the public policy that he will adopt adopting his own form of the trust act i do support the goals of the trust act and we need to move in that direction so what i would say to him is that so often massachusetts has led the way and when we have seen public policies that are simply wrong-headed don't work drive people apart and in and create an environment of racial profiling and incarceration in ways that are profoundly unfair that cut against the fundamental principle on which this country is based there are four very simple words on the front of the supreme court of the united states it's called equal justice under law those are the fundamental principles we need to maintain and it is up to a governor to speak up to use his power to turn moral leadership into action to turn it into legislation and to take on the federal government if we need to take on the federal government even the federal government even the obama administration which is record on the issue of deportation i do not support and i do not condone has acknowledged that secure communities doesn't work it is up to massachusetts which has so often led the way to lead the way on this and we've got at least two major municipal officials who are doing that i would like to be a governor who leads in exactly that form let me ask you this question before transitioning to the second topic are there any circumstances where you would agree with detention such as the detention of this gentleman or would you even go further where you might agree with indefinite detention for some individuals i think it depends on the nature of the offense but again when more than 50 percent have been deported for no criminal record whatsoever i think we have to recognize that the while there are those who commit crimes whether they're documented or undocumented whether citizens or undocumented immigrants that fundamentally we have blurred that distinction to the extent that we have created fear i mean the relationship between law enforcement and citizens is a fundamental principle when we have a relationship that works then i think our society works when we have a relationship that's built on fear and this man should and has a based on having been incarcerated for five months for what you described as being his quote unquote offense i say that's wrong and i say that this law needs to be dramatically overhauled reform that's why i support the goals of the trust act and we worked very hard to implement that it's long overdue so this question of course when you deal with excuse me when you deal with this whole notion of inclusion access to state services including language access now if elected government would you do what would you do to ensure that your administration the grossman administration is compliant with language access requirements and that all residents can access public information and communicate with all state agencies look we have we have great models already the English for New Bostonians program the city of boston has been a game changer for a thousand to twelve hundred immigrants a year it's working for 13 years it's working so let's take something that we see working and export it all over the state i mean if there are 16 perhaps more than that but i the figure that i use the 16 thousand immigrants waiting for esol classes i mean dating raveira who's a dear friend of mine who has endorsed my candidacy i was in lawrence recently and i said dan tell me about esol classes he said you want the good news or the bad news i said i'll take the good news he said we have 1200 people enrolled in classes i said what's the bad news he said we have a thousand on the waiting list then the same day i went to a company in lawrence called selectria so a wonderful company an emerging growth company a clean technology company that will grow from 200 employees to as many as 500 employees over the next three to five years one of the great winners right in lawrence so i talked to the leadership of the company i said tell me about the people who work here who don't have english language skills they said well if you don't have english language skills you can work here we need you but you won't make much more than 11 or 12 an hour but if you learn english if you have esol english esol classes excuse me you can become a manager you can play a leadership role there is no limit what i think we're talking about here is limitless possibilities for those who have english language skills so whether it is the program here the city of boston whether it's the waiting list that we have to clear whether it's the english language learners bill which is a wonderful piece of legislation hasn't passed yet but we need this to pass it will dramatically improve access and opportunity now the learning now the gap in terms of employment this is senator saldi dominico from everett this is representative jeff sanchez from boston and finally i'm a huge believer that we need to much more in terms of bringing interpreters and translators into all of our public places so that those who don't have those skills will be able to navigate the very difficult pathway that exists in state government we place barriers and roadblocks in the way of people who want to navigate our system of government we need to level that playing field and so we mentioned more and certainly one of the great immigrant communities in the in the state the home to immigrants of all over latin america but particularly the caribbean people from the dominican republic and i'm wondering what policies we would put in place as governor to discourage the type of legislative proposals that we've seen in arizona of that many describe as nativist of those policies we've also seen in georgia and such proposals that they've even been made in massachusetts and their policies which you put in place to position new americans uh to succeed in the great state of massachusetts so my father used to have expression he used to say words and words and promises or promises but only performance is reality so this is less about what would i do as governor prospectively but i'd like to share just for a moment or two what i've done as state treasure because it matters what you've done i made a promise to the people of massachusetts when i was sworn in on january 19th of 2011 i said two things i first first of all we'll hire the best people for every job because that's the way it should be hire the best people and second of all i said hiring would reflect the diversity of the society in which we live i'm proud to tell you that 35 percent of the people we've hired at treasuring and at the mass state lottery are people from diverse backgrounds but beyond that i was a business owner for 35 years and i knew how we succeeded so i had roundtable discussions all over the state with small business owners i had one in springfield i had carlos gunzales the head of the latino chamber of commerce pulled one together i asked one question what are the roadblocks and barriers you face as a small business owner and how can we remove those barriers and i listened to the answer access to capital technical assistance help with permitting the regulation health care with health care expenses so i thought about that a little bit and i said let's do something dramatic let's bring back hundreds of millions of dollars from overseas put it in massachusetts banks and let's loan that money to small businesses and let's focus on businesses that are owned by women diverse communities immigrants and veterans what's happened in three and a half years we have put 365 million dollars into more than a third of the banks in the state over 9 000 loans with over a billion dollars in loans a man named leo chantre brazilian immigrant leo chantre went to bucker hill community college he came from brazil he got his degree here he went back to brazil met his wife and they married came back here started a business leo chantre needed a loan to grow his business he got a loan from the cambridge savings bank he's in wilburn he's adding employees he got his degree from northeastern university cum laude with his children sitting there leo chantre is a proud immigrant who's growing a business and creating jobs whether you leo chantre or agnes young at adcatron or whether you were at olvale de la sultana in east boston whether you're any other small business an immigrant-owned business you should have access to capital and access to all the resources my goal as governor is to create one commonwealth level the playing field and leave no one behind that's about public policies that include people and that give people access we have changed public policy at this treasurer's office we created a diversity and outreach council we don't just have many women of color and immigrant communities but we have a person on our staff on our committee who represents all of the new africans in boston africans in boston the hundred thousand people were africans because everybody should have a way to succeed and grow and develop flourish and realize here's her potential that's the promise of massachusetts that's the promise of america mr grossman access to driver's licenses for undocumented workers in this country has proven to be a very very controversial issue from georgia to massachusetts from georgia to california i'm wondering do you support allowing all massachusetts residents to participate in the driver's licensing process regardless of their immigration status and if yes what specifically would you do as governor to ensure that massachusetts adopts such a policy and i asked that of course in the context that there's a lot of pushback against such proposals so fundamental principle first every immigrant should have the right to a driver's license and the piece of legislation that regrettably treasurer farley bouvié from pittsfield and pat jaylen from somerville we're not able to get through to its final passage we're going to bring that back and i will advocate for that and i will go to every corner of this commonwealth you know and i'm the nominee of the democratic party and i go up against charlie baker in a debate i will advocate for driver's licenses for all immigrants and if i don't get elected governor and people say steve the reason you fell short was because there were too many people in massachusetts who disagree with you about driver's licenses i promise you i will put my head down on the pillow for the rest of my life and say i did the right thing this is a fundamental issue of fairness and decency and look it's a public safety issue raise your hand if you think it would be a good idea for people to drive on the streets of the state without a license without driver's testing without driver's ed and without insurance raise your hand if you think that would be a good idea of course it's not a good idea we have people who go to work and they drive we have people who need to go to the supermarket and shop we have people who need to take their kids they have to go to a doctor's appointment they need a driver's license and this also has another piece to it and that is some people who fundamentally say we shouldn't allow in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants or children of undocumented immigrants because it'll cost us money that is so wrong there are 300,000 people who go to our 29 public colleges and universities for the few hundred people who will go growing to 700 or 800 mass taxpayers foundation did a study they said not only would it not cost our public colleges and universities any money not only would it take not take a seat away from anybody else but it will actually add revenue to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts over the next five to seven years you will wrap up so you'll have five to seven million dollars of revenue coming in better educated kids able to take their place able to contribute to the innovation economy fundamental principle don't leave any child behind and the final principle is universal pre-k 25,000 children woke up in Massachusetts this morning and they have no place to go to learn and most of them are the older industrial cities heavy immigrant population every three and four year old should have a chance to go to learn how to read to grow develop to flourish to realize his or her full potential that's a fundamental principle for a Grossman administration so mr. Grossman uh minted in 30 seconds to summarize we used up 30 seconds of that so I thank you for all being here today this is an issue that is so important to all of us there are over a million people who live in Massachusetts who were born in this country my grandfather came here in 1900 114 years ago he was an immigrant second youngest of 13 kids never go past the sixth grade his mother said max you got to go to work he shined shoes sold newspapers finally got a job as a delivery boy but he had a dream for his life he had a dream for his life and the dream was to own his own business years later he took me to lunch and he said Steve there are only four things I cared about my life I wanted to raise a healthy family wanted to educate my children I want to own my own business and give something back to the community the fundamental principles of a good rich full life family career and don't forget the community every one of you is here tonight because you are a citizen what Mike Dukaka says is the highest calling your citizens we care we have an opportunity we have an opportunity to make Massachusetts the best the most welcoming place with compassion with social and economic justice and when we do that we will realize the full promise of what Richard Florida said in his seminal book called A Rise of the Creative Class when he said that a society that is open and welcoming and tolerant to all is a society that will succeed beyond its wildest imagination we have an opportunity to create jobs opportunity great education and do things in our time in this society immigrant entrepreneurship has been the backbone of massachusetts for 400 years in this time on my watch as governor it will continue to be that thank you so much thank you Steve now we're waiting for Jeff McCormitt oh there you are Jeff okay thank you very much it's a pleasure Jeff all right okay short introduction here Jeff thank you Jeff McCormitt is the independent and he studied molecular genetics at Syracuse University but he made his mark with his MBA founding Saturn partners at finance firm specializing in capitalizing early stage companies you're a businessman and a scientist okay um and you also are someone who thinks about a lot of these issues including immigration obviously absolutely now you've heard the story about the young man who was stopped up and so we don't have to repeat it i mean from your beginning okay so the question is what would you say to him and another question what would you say to his family if there was the possibility of prospect that he might be deported after having been detained for five months uh and now wearing an ankle bracelet what would be your policy as governor in terms of um halting what many considered to be racial profiling and policies that uh that affect individuals of this sort coming back from a park and suddenly um brought into detention well let's start with that second part of it first racial profiling there there's just no acceptance for that period end of discussion uh so that that is just open and shut when it comes to uh that's pulling someone aside for what is a minor infraction and this to me ultimately is a failure of the federal government right we don't have clear rules and regulations here so we've got to use our head and i think in this commonwealth we're smarter than what we did honestly i think we've got to look at this situation and say okay this is a member of a community who you know has a family has roots and there doesn't seem anything with what i know about the details as we've been given them that would justify the actions we took i think it's extraordinarily heavy-handed and i have to tell you we i've been building companies for 27 years we have hundreds and hundreds of employees of companies that are extraordinary contributors to that those companies leaders and i'm not talking in you know manufacturing companies i mean software companies biotech companies you name it cto's ceo's cfo's of these companies so they're a really important part of what we do every day and i recognize that and i think in a commonwealth like massachusetts we've got to be smarter i mean that's what we're about that's our brand let's be smart let's be sensitive to these issues now of course a lot of these laws are these are federal laws and the whole notion of trying to supersede federal laws is that in itself can be problematic because you get yourself in trouble at times with the federal government so how would you how do you jowl with the how would you jowl with the government the federal government over their predilection as opposed to your predilection as governor on uh detention issues of this sort well at the end of the day the federal government can't have a very heavy hand i mean there's no there's no question about it but you have to go to bat and this is a very important state uh in national politics for both sides for different reasons and i i think as a governor there are times in life you just have to step up and say this is what we think the right thing to do you have to use a bully pulpit you have to get people behind you to do the right thing and with the as higher percentage uh of massachusetts uh you know with this uh the immigrant community you could get a lot of people behind you very very quickly on an issue like this if you were governor uh mr fischer which would you um i would just say that mr fischer that's okay my apologies yeah there's so many candidates that's not like a mark fischer you don't sound like anything but this this question mr fischer steve help me out here yeah thank you this question uh now you heard the emotion around this border issue children coming across the border absolutely from Guatemala and Honduras El Salvador ending up in uh the u.s mexico border some of them the possibility might have some of them might have come to massachusetts to be housed under a federal program what would you have done under those circumstances if uh you had the opportunity to uh to house uh children first of all this is this again is a very political issue there's no question about how it how it uh hit the surface and how it disappeared as quickly as it did there's there's no doubt about that what i said is we've got to talk to these local communities right away and we have to ask them if they have the resources to support these children and the overwhelming response very quickly was people saying we don't have the resources you know we have school budgets are stretched you know we're getting um the prop two and a half overrides people are up in arms the bottom you know et cetera et cetera and i think a lot of it came down to a total distrust of the federal government that they were going to put something in place long enough term that they actually would pay for it but at the end of the day even if the federal government is paying for it they're paying for it out of our tax dollars our collective tax dollars and what what bothered me most is there are so many needy people in this commonwealth right now and all the candidates we've been everywhere i mean we've traveled all over this commonwealth and you know it pains me to give money to to veterans on the when i want to work it pains me to have to feed people by the hundreds at pine street end so the need is there and we've got to say to ourselves at what point do we break and i have seen poverty on a scale that most people in this room have never seen i'm talking the slums of Mumbai the mud hut slums of africa it is extraordinary the world's needs are infinite there's no doubt about it so we have to figure out what is our role as a society in that no jeff pacormick now there's some who would argue that we actually have um that we don't have infinite resources that we have resources enough to that there's enough for everybody do you subscribe to that argument that if we wanted to if the state put its mind to it its resources to it they could in fact afford to house children under those circumstances if it became necessary well you're making it a state issue and you know what in my family this is my wife and i and christine we said what if it were more of a private issue what what if we could get people to rally people with the means to do it and say i want to help personally so she said to me jeff let's take two of these children in and and we will take care of them as long as we need to take care of them if it's through college it's through college you know and i thought you know that is a really interesting kind of solution and i have friends that are on these ridiculous waiting lists to adopt children you know can you imagine that if if if america just said you know what we're going to take care of this privately and we're not going to burden a lot of these gateway cities and remember a lot of it would be cities that already are extremely stretched with with the population that they just can't serve well this probably suggests why you're an independent candidate it doesn't that doesn't that reflects neither the a democratic platform position or a republican platform position am i correct yeah it's a creative solution and that's what i do in my life all these companies that you know that we've been successful with when we started them out people thought we were nuts constant contact they thought we're nuts boston duct tours they thought we were really crazy with that it's been very successful well let's let's talk about resources if elected governor what would you do to ensure your administration is compliant with language access requirements and that all residents can access public information and communicate with all state agencies that obviously require some money well i've traveled the world so many times and i've been in many many places that i don't speak the language and i can't imagine if i went to china or if i went to russia couldn't speak the language and i had a lot of education and i just couldn't be productive so i am certainly someone who would need the help to be a strong contributor to society there's no doubt about it but i have a lot of potential right and that's the way i look at immigrant populations as well and because i have had the direct first hand experience with so many people in our portfolio companies that have created extraordinary value and by the way when you create a lot of value you create a lot of jobs and if you remember anything about my campaign it should be jeff for jobs i mean that's what i want to do no jeff listen mccormick yep i don't know you that well no i'm just don't call me mark all right i won't call you mark um a new americans agenda you you have people in your staff you see who are new americans who work for your company so you've seen this this history in action integrating immigrants from all over all of the world including refugees who fled for their survival we have rewandants here for example cambodians here uh what policies would you put in places governor to discourage in a very important word nativist legislation proposals like those we've seen in arizona for example well first of all i i think governor just has to veto any policy that that even he eats at that and and discussion you know i i think that's a that's the very first place to start but there's there's other things that we need to do and there's some things that haven't come into conversation tonight that i think are really really important i think we ought to think rethink our health care policy uh i think uh there are things like uh deductibles and copays especially for primary care okay so primary care long term will save money in health care and get people the best outcomes so now we're going to create a disincentive for people to do the thing that is most beneficial and drives the most the most value in health care it just makes no sense at all to me and unfortunately immigrants are burdened with you know those very kinds of issues and again they're just they're creating disincentives for people they're hurting people they're preventing people from from working and having productive lives and so how would you basically sustain massachusetts commitment to to inclusive access to health care what what specifically what you do well specifically what we need to do first of all the state is a huge health care consumer it's 42 percent of the state's budget right so the state is the gorilla consumer and when you're a big consumer you can you can dictate the terms because that happens to us because we've got all these little companies and believe me all these fortune 500 companies are doing it to us all the time right so you can change behavior and by the way the providers they know that this is where the world needs to go they know they have to bring down the cost they know we can't continue to have health care costs as high as they are final question do you support allowing all massachusetts residents to participate in the driver's licensing process regardless of immigration status undocumented or or documented before i answer that let me tell you the way i look at of any problem in the opportunity i'm trained as a scientist and as an analyst i talked to the experts i talked to you know i do the 360 i talked to immigrants i talked to people in the insurance business i talked to people in law enforcement and what was very interesting is the the patrolmen and the state troopers and the sheriffs i talked to they said jeff would you rather have safe drivers on the road or not you know that's what this comes down to you know immigration issues are a separate issue just look at look at the training people would have look at the safety the insurance people say it's the only way they're going to get insurance so to me it seems like a no-brainer when you do it that way and i think as governor the next governor ought to get law enforcement to stand up and say you know what this is just smart this is going to help people you know and and you know i think you framed it extremely well who would who would choose the opposite right i i truly don't see where the argument here is jeff why did you take two minutes to sum up your position so i look at i look at the world as obviously as an optimist because i'm an entrepreneur you know one of those people who goes just kind of 24-7 to create companies and create jobs we've done it in energy we've done it in healthcare we've done it biotech software occasionally a crazy company like boss inductors and we just try and solve problems we're doing in education you know i found out that the number one reason why young men of color drop out of high school is struggling in math we have a math software company right now we teach millions of kids math in 41 different states and they get much higher math scores in a year 30 percent higher scores so we keep kids in school we get rid of chronic unemployment we decrease the rates of incarceration to me that's a solution and that's what i want to do is cover just apply a skill set of getting to the bottom which at the end of the day a lot of it is about people having opportunity and access to a lot of good jobs that's what i've done in my private sector life that's what i want to do in republic sector life create jobs and opportunity for people and thanks so much for taking the time out to hear this jeff mccormick okay we're we're waiting up for the attorney general and she's here okay jeff thank you very much so i've gotten to know them call them jeff now um this is your seat okay and we wound off the outer hour with the attorney general massachusetts martha coakley she's a 2010 democratic nominee for a massachusetts for the u.s senate and currently leads most polls for governor as we head into the democratic party primary on tuesday september ninth just a few weeks from now um about less than four weeks from now and the question of immigration of course is a question we've been dealing with all all night and you may not have heard this story about a fellow named just way who's a member of the committee davis senos in fitchburg he was driving home from a picnic with his wife and five children when he stopped by the state police and he was told that his registration had expired it had not expired but there was a problem with his license and so he was detained by the state police detained for five months he was equipped with an ankle bracelet after a major outcry by communities around the state because they felt he'd been separated from his wife and in five children and he he essentially was um he essentially was told that uh that uh in order to keep his his uh his family together he would basically have to answer to immigration officials they're going to make a decision tomorrow or sometime within the next few weeks whether or not he's going to stay in this country or leave this country in other words he has an appointment with ice and he's worried that he may be ordered to leave the country and his family and his children i'm told have suffered psychologically from this experience and his whole family apparently i'm told is more terrified of the police than ever before and my question to you attorney general is if governor what would you say to this gentleman and how would you use your position as governor to ensure that massachusetts public safety policies promote the safety of all residents and do not lead to family separating and or racial profiling well and in certainly you can understand the stress on the family and the individual involved here that is exactly the set of circumstances type of circumstances that i know is i have talked to folks since last september that have raised concerns on the issues around secure communities and what that federal program is doing and on a a more local level even without that uh what are we doing to make sure that people who are here in massachusetts are safe so just by way of background my experience as district attorney has been regardless of the status of victims or defendants who are charged that they are entitled to um a fair system representation of council i would hope that this gentleman involved has council for him he should if he doesn't and that we understand as i do as attorney general that people who are working deserve to get paid in other words when we go after companies who violate people's rights we don't focus on the status of workers we focus on the companies and their compliance with the law this particular piece about how we will continue to keep our communities safe is is i had hoped by now we would have a solution at the federal level we do not and just as we did with the cambodian community in lowell and with the Haitian community in Cambridge uh we have worked in the district attorney's office and the attorney general's office to make sure that with language translation with understanding cultural competency that's required we provide the ability for people not only to be safe but to feel safe in their communities and this concern about what is happening mostly because we've had no solution at the federal level clearly pushes down now to the states the need to be engaged and for this particular gentleman to have council and to insist upon what his rights should be obviously there are facts i don't know in this circumstance um but it doesn't sound like that is either um the goal nor should it be the result of federal action that is masquerading as some kind of secure communities that wasn't the original goal of the federal program it's not what it should be doing now and i'm glad to hear that at the federal level j johnson has said he will review this to determine uh what that mission is and i think that all states including i as next governor would work with our executive office of public safety with our immigrant community uh with advocates around making sure that both what the federal government says it's doing and what it's actually doing is consistent with what we want for our safety and our security in our communities here in massachusetts attorney general cochlea now uh i'm going to ask you three uh additional questions main questions within our a lot of time but i'm just going to sneak in this question as well it's called secure communities uh the purposely called secure communities that is supposed to resonate in our minds are there any circumstances in which you feel that uh undocumented individuals should be detained um i think what the original purpose of secure communities was and the way in which it was adopted first by mayor menino and uh ed davis who was the chief of police at the time was to allow for the securing of the most dangerous of predators who were often as we know praying upon those in their own community uh an immigrant community for instance where the threat to a victim the domestic violence victim or the victim of a robbery who's of the same community that don't go to the police because you'll be deported meant it was very difficult for those communities to feel safe that was the basis on which it was first adopted in boston it was adopted at that level and my understanding from listening anecdotally to people and looking what's happened is that that eventually became a program that was different and other than what i just described clearly we whether people are uh if people are dangerous uh they need to be detained uh we want to protect our public safety but there should be no difference between whether people are here undocumented or whether they are citizens of the united states so the criminal justice system should act fairly in those circumstances let me ask you this question about inclusive access to state services if elected governor what would you do to ensure your administration is compliant with language access requirements and that all residents can access public information and communicate with all state agencies and how would you sustain massachusetts commitment to inclusive access to health care education and social services so let's start with the health care education social services because that's incredibly important that is our way in which at the state level particularly and with local authorities we provide for prevention for community health care for making sure that there is both the cultural competency and the language ability for all people who need access to health care let's start with that we've done better in massachusetts but we should do more because without language ability and availability and access then health care is as effectively denied we don't provide access without that we've done through our not-for-profits and i hope as we move in massachusetts towards more community preventive health care the ability to work in the communities that means having on staff everybody from the someone at the reception desk to someone to the doctors and nurses to the medical profession the the people who are going to be able to understand the community they serve in terms of education we understand that the state needs to be able to provide for all of our students including our adult basic education the ability for language services that will allow access to their education otherwise it's a meaningless if there's no teeth to it it's meaningless unless we provide access through education through the language ability and otherwise through social service the same way i think the governor the next governor has an opportunity to say through our dcf and our dmh department of mental health and children family services that we break down silos and that includes the silos that we need for problem solving with families and kids who need help we should have more help in our schools and that means with language access and making sure that we're able to provide the services in the language with the understanding of the communities that we serve that we've seen i have seen that in my work as an assistant da enroll in summerville and cambridge as a district attorney certainly through all of mental sex county we're involved in alone we have over 70 languages that are spoken within that high school um and so the state has to and can work with the local communities to make sure that particularly in those three areas the communities that are here in massachusetts that we need to serve particularly around education but also with health care and social services we are able to do that effectively now all of your fellow candidates have expressed strong opinions of supportive of integrating immigrants from all areas of the world including refugees who fled for their survival all but with the caveat of uh mr fisher uh in talking about integrating these diverse population immigrant populations in the nation what policies would you put in place as governor to discourage what many describe as nativist legislative proposals like those we've seen in arizona for example george is another state and even in massachusetts and what policies would you put in place to position new americans to succeed in our state well first of all i'd like to think that that risk in massachusetts is much less than it might be uh in arizona uh or some of the other states where we've seen a very unfortunate anti-immigrant very hostile both on the ground and in the legislative arena i think massachusetts and certainly we know this working in our civil rights division on the attorney general's office our job is not only to make sure that we don't discriminate against people but that we're inclusive and that's true depending upon your origin depending upon whether you are hearing impaired depending upon whether you are disabled in some other way we have looked at a population that is here and say how do we provide access and how do we make sure that um the inclusion of the population and for new americans for immigrants who are here that includes things we just talked about i i would like to think that the next attorney general would work with the next governor to make sure that legislation like that would not get passed if it was that it could be challenged the attorney general has the ability to look at and challenge as we have federal statutes whether it's the offensive marriage act or other acts that we think aren't fair and it's also making sure that not only do those statutes not get past it they do they get challenged but that within an agency within the application of what the policies are you set that tone from the top and that you are able to through inclusion in your cabinet through inclusion in the people who work for the state that you are able to um have that conversation with people in massachusetts and and make sure that we are um as we indicated education social work particularly health care including people in that process that includes in the political system a better representation for people at every level so that their voices are going to be heard at the table briefly attorney general cochly what is your view about undocumented immigrants receiving driver's licenses in this state what's your view about that as a policy so we've had a lot of discussion on this during the course of this campaign and i have said uh that i am open to ways that we can do what i know other states have looked at and i've started to take a look at what other states have been able to do um i have said and in the past i have been opposed to that um but it is clear to me that people who need to get to work people have medical emergencies and particularly because we have no national solution to pathways to immigration for people and families who have been here paying taxes working hard we clearly have to find a way to do that whatever that best way is i have said to mirror into other groups that i've talked to i'm willing to work with them on how we do that and one thing that i'd like to say tonight because i've thought a lot about how we do that i've looked at proposed statutes that are pending i think there's some pluses and minuses to the language you know that i'm a lawyer so i look at how the language works and also what some of the consequences will be but one thought that would make much of this i think more effective and quicker would be for if i'm elected governor to have a director of immigration and safety in our communities in other words someone directly who could work interagency and directly with me and directly with advocacy groups particularly on how do we pave the way for safe driving making sure that people can have licenses have the proper registration and what is the best way to do it which state is done the best which way do we do it without unintended consequences and also would help us address some of the issues that you started out with with the the gentleman who's been detained and how is it the massachusetts can best protect on both safety and inclusion of everybody who's here some experts this is just the final question some experts have concluded that the fishers in our immigration policy on a national level have basically exacerbated problems of human trafficking what would you do to if you will to address that issue as it exists in our our state well it did much to my dismay it came to my attention that we were one of three states in massachusetts that have no anti-human trafficking statute and when we first started talking about this issue people said well why do we need it we don't have any trafficking here in massachusetts of course we know otherwise both sex trafficking and labor trafficking i saw that first actually when i did child abuse work and i saw young women who might have come into the system as defendants but who actually have been victimized and trafficked on the street sometimes in a more organized way sometimes by a boyfriend or by another family member we now have a very strong anti-human trafficking statute both for labor and sex we have worked on cases already with the federal government and bringing awareness of this as one of the biggest growing in lucrative industries people know they sell guns they sell drugs they're gone they can sell young women particularly and also young men again and again and the availability of that on the internet but i think that is something that is very underground right now but certainly not invisible and we need to work in massachusetts to educate people that it exists we need to work with emergency rooms we need to work across the states so people can see trafficking victims they don't see them now and make sure that we use our state and our federal resources both for holding those accountable who would trafficking people and also making resources available to victims of trafficking many of whom have been in for a long time and maybe either domestic or from other countries and we don't have the resources yet to do that but i'm committed to making sure we do all right why don't you take two minutes to summarize your position if you will on immigration sure you know i think as we move forward out of a tough recession here and we look at a massachusetts that i think can be prosperous and fair that we turn this economy around for everybody who's here not just wall street not just people in boston and cambridge and parts of boston and cambridge but for the whole state and for everybody who is here who wants to work hard who wants a good education who wants to be part of what this country has always been uh is a way to as my dad did work his way through college and and believe in education for his kids find a way for all of our kids in massachusetts to find a dream and to follow it and that means being inclusive in education including in state tuition as the governor has making sure that all of our children have access to early education the schools that will give them that make sure they have opportunities for uh uh english language studies that that's what they want that we have an open mind here in massachusetts as we move forward and i think that with the advocacy groups here with the incredible interest i think in the innovation economy we do have that opportunity to make sure we can turn this economy around for everybody education for everybody we can be prosperous and fair in a way that includes um people who are here who i believe an important part of our culture and our future so thank you very much attorney general morphe goker thank you well folks i gotta tell you thank you um i'd like to um like to thank you for being here first of all and uh thanks to the event sponsors the massachusetts is an immigrant and refugee advocacy coalition and to bunker hill community college and of course to our uh our candidates and uh president it injured i want to thank you tremendously for uh for your support and for helping to bring this together and i'd like you to come up please uh huh thanks and thanks to all the cosponsors and endorsers the candidates and the audience and i'm reading all this republicans and democrats please remember to vote in your chosen party september 9th primary very important to vote less than three weeks away folks and we hope this evening has helped everyone in their decision making as we close in on the november 4th 2014th election for governor massachusetts and i'd like to thank you again and and i'd like you to say a last word if you will don't forget to vote and hopefully we will have another session once the primaries are over um so we can hear um the next part of the contest so good night everybody thank you for coming