Volunteers promoting a citizen-initiated referendum in Massachusetts have faced violence and harassment, according to a pair of lawsuits and state Republican leaders.
The referendum seeks to undo a new law giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
The state Republican party has responded with federal and state civil rights lawsuits against state attorney general Maura Healey, a state senator, and a city councilman.
Jim Lyons, chairman of Massachusetts Republican Party, told The Epoch Times that state Republicans decided to file the lawsuits—one in federal court and the other in a state court—after after agitators flipped over signature tables, grabbed and ripped up ballots and signature pages, heckled supporters, and pushed a volunteer, who is a retired police officer, up against a wall.When the Republicans asked Healey, a Democrat who is running for governor, for protection and sanctions against the agitators, Lyons said she ignored them.
“This is a state attorney general, someone responsible for upholding Massachusetts constitutional and civil rights laws, and so far she’s done and said nothing about this,” said Lyons, who is also a state representative.
He added that driving in America is a privilege not a right.
“Why are we giving privileges to people who have already violated our laws of this country,” said Lyons.
Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a Democrat from Acton, is named as the “leader” in the attacks.
The Epoch Times made repeated attempts to contact Eldridge. His office had not responded to those attempts as of press time.
According to the lawsuit, several people gave eyewitness accounts of Eldridge physically blocking people from reaching signatures tables.
He is also accused of engaging in intimidation tactics to discourage people from signing the referendum petition.
Healey’s office declined to comment on the pending lawsuits, which were filed on July 25. Healey lists “ensuring” illegal immigrants can receive a driver’s license “regardless of immigration status” as a top priority of her gubernatorial campaign to unseat Republican Gov. Charlie Baker.
Baker vetoed the passage of a long pushed-for bill that would give driver’s licenses to illegals in Massachusetts, but the Democrat-dominated House voted to override him.
Baker said the measure will lead to voter fraud because of a policy in Massachusetts that automatically enrolls anyone issued a driver’s license on the state’s voter registration.
Maureen Maloney, who spearheaded the efforts to put the new policy on the November ballot for a referendum vote, told The Epoch Times she is more concerned about the safety risks of giving illegal aliens driver’s licenses.
Her son Matthew Denice was killed by an illegal immigrant from Ecuador in 2011 after the Honduras native took an illegal turn, striking the 23-year-old who was riding a motorcycle and then dragging him under his truck while onlookers tried desperately to stop him.
She cited several other similar motor vehicle fatalities caused by illegal aliens in Massachusetts, including two others in her home town of Milford where her son was also tragically killed.
“Giving them driver’s licenses is rewarding them for breaking the law and sending a message that Massachusetts is soft on crimes committed by people living illegally here,” said Maloney.
Maloney said she recently attended a parole hearing for Nicolas Dutan Guaman, the man who killed her son.
“He’s been in jail for almost 11 years and still hasn’t learned any English,” she said, “our government instead provides him with a translator. Now they want to provide them with driver’s licenses.”
Supporters of the new policy say it will actually make roads safer because illegal aliens will have to pass a test in order to obtain a license.
Democrats have also said that by putting illegal immigrants through the process of obtaining a license, they will be forced to obtain insurance to cover any expenses of accidents in which they are found to be at fault.
They need 40,000 by August 24 to get a referendum question on the November ballot asking voters to decide if illegal aliens should be given driver’s licenses by the state.
Polling of 800 residents conducted by Suffolk University last month, showed that 46.6 percent of them opposed giving licenses to illegals while 46.1 supported the move. Some 7 percent reported as undecided and a small percentage refused to answer the question.
Donald Rosenberg, founder of AVIAC, told The Epoch Times that his organization continuously tracks the increase in motor vehicle fatalities in states that issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens and it averages around 20 to 25 percent.
“That’s no small number,” said Rosenberg whose son Drew was killed in 2010 by a driver—a Honduras man living illegally in San Francisco.
In response to the argument that American drivers also cause accidents, Rosenberg emphasized “that it’s no accident to be in the country illegally and that it’s no accident for people in the country illegally to be driving a car illegally.”
He said his organization found in an overwhelming number of cases that illegal immigrants that killed someone with their car had prior convictions.
According to the Massachusetts lawsuit businesses who hosted signature drives for the referendum they have also been harassed and intimidated.
Lyons pointed out that when violent protests unfolded in Boston over the death of George Floyd, Healey responded by saying “America is burning, but that’s how trees grow.”
A Massachusetts pregnancy center was also recently attacked shortly after Healey, a staunch supporter of Planned Parenthood, issued a two-page advisory against them.
The lawsuits also names Waltham councilman Jonathan Paz and Wesley McEnany, a union organizer who runs a grassroots group called “Massachusetts Is Not For Sale.”
Neither responded to requests for comment by The Epoch Times.
