Immigration think tank aims to assist communities with practical matters

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Immigration think tank aims to assist communities with practical matters

By Leah Rae The [Lower Hudson] Journal News
(Original Publication: February 12, 2007)

The federal government writes immigration policy, but local agencies are
the ones left to slog through the logistical challenges of language
barriers, labor issues, health coverage and culture clashes. That's the
thinking behind a new National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, a
project that aims to assist communities with practical information and
training. "We really hope to raise up these issues so that the immigration
debate doesn't barrel ahead without taking some responsibility for what's
happening locally," said Margie McHugh, who left the New York Immigration
Coalition - and her Yonkers home - to join the new project in Washington.
"We treat the two as if they're separate domains right now, but really
they're two sides of the same coin."

The center is co-directed by McHugh and researcher Michael Fix under the
umbrella of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies
migration worldwide. McHugh said most of her immigration work in New York
was related to local issues, such as the need for English instruction and
immigrants' access to health care. She said the new center would cater to
a range of agencies adapting to population changes: state and local
government staff, school districts, health-care providers and others. "I
think there's a wide audience of people who are looking to address some of
the rough edges of the impact of immigration in their community," she
said.

Locally, immigration, and particularly illegal immigration, has played
into issues including overcrowded housing, health and education costs,
day-labor hiring sites, voting rights and language barriers. "Language
barriers are one obvious problem, but there's also a cultural barrier as
well," said Mike Santos, a former Brewster trustee who has long been
involved in discussions about the village's day-labor population.  "The
second part is to get the federal government to pay for the expenses
associated with a problem that their dereliction of duty created." Santos
said immigration has led to added costs in building inspection and local
services, including the reconstitution of the village police force.

The little money spent by the federal government on immigrant integration
tends to be limited to foreign-born farmworkers and refugees, according to
the center. But McHugh said there are funding sources that local
communities may not be aware of, such as grants for English instruction in
the schools. In Rockland, for example, schools are dealing with the
challenge of how to integrate recently-arrived teenagers into the system,
where they are expected to keep up with standardized tests, said Gail
Golden of the Rockland Immigration Coalition. "One of the consistent
things I see in doing this work is that there's a great deal of
misinformation," she said, "a lot of knee-jerk responses to issues."

Lindsay Farrell, chief executive officer of Open Door Family Medical
Centers, said her agency could benefit from seeing more research on "best
practices" among health providers serving immigrant communities. "I, for
one, would be really interested in learning what they're doing in
California and other places where similar groups are settled," she said.
Congress began debating a raft of immigration policy bills last year, but
the discussions ended in a stalemate. In the meantime, states have become
more active in introducing immigration-related legislation, said Dirk
Hegen of the Immigrant Policy Project of the National Conference of State
Legislatures. He attended the launch last week of the center and its "data
hub," which provides state-by-state data on the foreign-born.

Due to gridlock on the federal level, he said, "states are very active in
introducing legislation and are certainly interested in information and
best practice and policy options."

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070212/NEWS01/702120338/1020/NEWS04

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