Immigration

Election Day

/ The Old Crank

In addition to the presidential contest and a couple of interesting Senate races, there are a couple of ballot initiatives related to immigration and education that I’ll be following closely tonight. First, in Maryland, there is a referendum on whether the state DREAM Act, passed by the legislature, should be enacted into law. If approved, eligible undocumented immigrants will be eligible for in-state tuition throughout Maryland’s public higher education system.

Second, in Montana, voters will decide on LR-121, a proposal to deny certain state services to undocumented immigrants, including barring them from “qualification as a student in the university system for the purposes of a public education,” as well as state-funded student financial aid. The proposal also requires any state agency in Montana to verify the immigration status of any individual seeking a state service if that individual cannot provide evidence of U.S. citizenship or lawful alien status. I have not heard anything specific related to the impact of this proposal on state/federal-funded adult education programs, but these kinds of requirements are typically problematic for many ESL programs.

See also: The Maryland Dream Act: Giving Undocumented Students Like Me a Fair Shot

Early Reports Suggest DACA Increasing Demand for Adult Education

/ The Old Crank

Back in I August I wrote an article suggesting that the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative might increase demand for GED classes—and for adult education classes in general.

According to Miranda Leitsinger of NBC News, it has. Although it’s not clear yet what the impact of DACA has been on the demand for adult education in general, she reports that interest in the GED test is on the rise, at least in some states.

Some GED state testing centers are seeing a spike in requests to take the test or a course, as well as an uptick in calls with questions about the exam since the government began accepting applications for the deferred action program on Aug. 15, according to an informal survey of state GED test program administrators conducted by the GED Testing Service, the official creator of the exam.

In Iowa, centers have experienced a 20 percent rise in English as a Second Language attendance for GED prep, while Massachusetts has seen a 25 percent to 50 percent surge in registration for the test through Spanish. In North Carolina, there has been a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in testing requests, including to take it in Spanish, prompting adminstrators to order more such tests for next year.

I suspect that the main reason an increase in demand is only being reported from some states is due to a lack of data. The GED test program administrator survey cited here, for example, is characterized as “informal,” and it could be that many states did not respond or have not collected data on this yet.

Leitsinger also suggests that DACA is increasing immigration advocates’ awareness of the lack of adult education services available:

I think it’s fair to say that the immigrant rights movement is discovering the education reform movement … and that they’re really coming to understand, first of all, how hard it is to get a GED and secondly, how limited the capacity of adult education programs is,” said Margie McHugh, co-director of the Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy. “Certainly this 350,000 or so young people are the most immediate concern and the most vulnerable for not making it through the process, and that’s very much related to both the difficulty of pursuing a GED or completing a GED … and also the lack of availability of programs.”

What’s critical about all this is that it means that the relief provided by DACA is going to be much more accessible to those with the means to pay for GED classes. I’d be interested to know the extent to which the administration took into account the availability of free/low-cost adult education services when they formulated this policy, and whether they were concerned that the lack of such services might seem unfair to those with limited means. Secondly, now that there is evidence that the potential DACA applicants are frustrated by the lack of affordable services, whether this presents an opportunity for immigration rights advocates and adult education rights advocates, working together, to ramp up our advocacy on the need for adult education services.

Handy Flyer from USCIS on New Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Immigration Policy

/ The Old Crank

This new one-page flyer on the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Immigration Policy, published by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), does a pretty good job explaining, in a visual way, how the new policy works, although it’s a little odd to me that they did not include the acronym for “general education development”—the GED—in this flyer, since it’s a much more well-known term.

Remember, as I noted yesterday, it appears that a person who is without a diploma or GED and not in school now—but who otherwise meets the eligibility requirements—may qualify by returning to school or by enrolling in a GED program before applying.

More information available at the USCIS site. (h/t Save Adult Ed!)

Nebraska City’s 2010 Anti-Immigrant Ordinance Comically Off Target, and Irritating to Business

/ The Old Crank

The City of Fremont, Nebraska is providing a good case study on how anti-immigration efforts can backfire. Despite the fact that, according to this article, no one in Fremont has any idea how many of its 1,259 non-citizens are illegal immigrants, (or if there are any at all) anti-immigrant petitioners managed to get a referendum passed in 2010 that requires companies to verify the citizenship status of the people they hire, while forcing renters to swear to landlords that they are legal residents and pay a $5 fee for the pleasure.

But the law doesn’t really do much of anything other than irritate the local business community and antagonize the city’s Hispanic residents. A federal judge threw out part  of it, (because it was in conflict with federal law), making the rental verification piece utterly toothless (the city isn’t allowed to revoke the rental permits if applicants actually turn out to be illegal immigrants); and the hiring verification piece won’t have any effect beyond the city limits of Fremont, which is where most of the immigrant population in the area actually lives and works.

Meanwhile, business owners hate the new rules:

“I’ve spoken to a few businesses owners about it, and … they definitely feel this is just another burden for them,” [mayoral candidate] Paden said. “I don’t feel that it should be up to the businesses to police these matters. We have federal agencies that should be handling that. All this ordinance is now is another hoop to jump through.”

Ron Tillery, with the Fremont Area Chamber of Commerce, questioned Tuesday how effective the ordinance will be. Most of Fremont’s businesses already comply with the E-Verify requirements, he said, and the new housing permits seem to serve little purpose in the wake of the judge’s ruling. He said the city will incur costs to process the rental permits but won’t be allowed to act on the information and deny any permits.

The article also notes that the City Council president, mayor, city attorney and city administrator have all resigned within the last year, suggesting that the fallout from the ordinance is to blame.

So if the law is largely toothless, opposed by the business community, and poison to political leaders in town, what is the point of it?

Petition organizer Jerry Hart said he knows the ordinance won’t eliminate illegal immigration, but he hopes it will inspire other cities and states to act.

“Our goal when we started was just to get the issue to a vote of the people,” Hart said. “The people of Fremont let it be known that they don’t want illegal immigrants in their community.” (my emphasis)

A local grocery owner says, according the article, that the ordinance “is not about illegal (immigrants). It’s about race. The people behind it don’t want Hispanics here.”