Beacon Hill unaffected by bill failure

By KC Cohen

BEACON HILL—Last March, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Coalition Association and state lawmakers butted heads over a bill that would allow citizens to notify their local government of suspected employment of illegal immigrants.

Sen. Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester republican, said the bill would make it easier to regulate the employment of illegal immigrants, but the association called it anti-immigrant.

“We were worried it would lead to discrimination and prejudice, especially from people who had animus toward a business or an employee,” said Carly Burton, acting deputy director of the association. “They could call up, say that that person was undocumented, without any proof of it.”

Senator Tarr did not return phone calls.

A year later, the bill’s failure to pass has not affected the Beacon Hill community, most likely because the neighborhood’s immigrant population is nearly nonexistent.

In the 19th century, the North Slope of Beacon Hill was home to a large population of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. As of 2000, 85 percent of the Beacon Hill population was white, and 83 percent of families speak English at home, according to the Department of Neighborhood Development.


“There is not a large population of immigrants here,” said Suzanne Besser, director of the Beacon Hill Civic Association. “We wish we had more diversity.”

The Act to Promote Fair Employment and Security proposal would have imposed a $5,000 fine and up to five years in prison for the use of false identification to obtain employment. It also would have created a 24-hour hotline to report suspected wrongful employment of undocumented immigrants.

Immigrants make a large contribution to Massachusetts, said Burton, but most immigrant legislation affects districts with a larger immigrant population, such as Somerville and East Boston.

Beacon Hill is well known for the high cost of real estate, but the neighborhood has never been targeted as an area of housing discrimination, said Vera Schneider, director of investigations for the Boston Fair Housing Commission.