A bill to limit state-funded adult education to only legal New Hampshire residents set off a heated hearing in the House on Wednesday, drawing opposition from educators and advocates who said it would discriminate against immigrants.
Senate Bill 525 would restrict the availability of the programs – which include English courses, high school education programs and workforce development programs – to “legal residents.” The bill, which passed the Senate earlier this month, would affect programs that currently serve about 7,000 people in the state, according to the Department of Education.
At a hearing before the House Education Committee Wednesday, the legislation’s prime sponsor, Sen. Andy Sanborn, R-Bedford, said the language was intended to target workforce education programs and would not affect those with green cards or refugees. New Hampshire employers are prohibited from hiring workers without legal status, and paying for workforce education for noncitizens who can’t get a job at the end is a waste of money, Sanborn argued.
“Do we provide this program to people who are not legally allowed to work, or do we apply this program to people who are legally allowed to work?” he said to the committee.
Rep. Jim McConnell, R-Swanzey, said he supports the bill on basic principle. Those attempting to become citizens through legal channels should be required to learn English, he said, but added: “If they’re here illegally, I don’t want them here at all, and I certainly don’t want to spend any money on them.”
But opponents, who came out in numbers Tuesday, took issue with Sanborn’s characterizations. Cathy Chesley, an immigration attorney representing New Hampshire Catholic Charities, said the bill would discriminate against those who are not yet citizens but are attempting to be.
Many people can be residents of the state as they apply for visas, she said – spouses of those in the country on a work visa, for example. If approved, the bill would deprive them of the opportunity to learn English as they wait on their applications, Chesley said.
“While you’re waiting around for nine months, you know you’re going to be authorized, you’ve put an application in place, you’re not allowed to start learning English (under the bill),” Chesley said. “So the day you start in your job you don’t know English? It’s silly. It’s just silly.”
Others argued that, contrary to Sanborn’s descriptions, the bill would not be restricted to workforce education, and does not clearly exempt green card holders or refugees. And some questioned whether the change was necessary at all since the Department of Education does not currently ask for citizenship status for those in its programs, and the numbers of noncitizens who use the services now is unknown.
Sanborn defended the bill as an important financial safeguard for the state that would still protect those who need the programs to work.
“We clearly know there is not enough money to do all the job training programs that we do on a regular basis,” he said.
The bill was recommended to be killed by the Senate Education Committee, 5-0, in February. Speaking Wednesday, Sen. David Watters, D-Dover, who serves on that committee, said the committee had found a range of potential legal problems in the language, particularly around the definition of “legal resident,” which, he said, is not defined in state law. Those concerns are shared with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, which argues the bill could face constitutional challenges if passed.
Earlier this month, the full Senate overturned the committee recommendation and passed the bill, 13-11.
(Ethan DeWitt can be reached at edewitt@cmonitor.com, or on Twitter at @edewittNH.)