Thread: Md. city declares English official

Md. city declares English official
Taneytown council calls for business in one language

By Laura McCandlish
Sun reporter
Originally published November 14, 2006
Taneytown became the first municipality in Maryland to pass a resolution declaring English its official language but stopped short last night of a proposed change to the city charter that had drawn criticism from civil rights groups and some residents.

Mayor W. Robert Flickinger said the nonbinding English Language Unity resolution was preferable to a change in the charter, which would have been costly to implement and probably would have drawn lawsuits.




Had the charter been amended, "you're stuck with it," he said.

Taneytown's action comes on the heels of similar, more sweeping ordinances elsewhere - the latest Farmers Branch, Texas, where the City Council adopted ordinances last night to crack down on illegal immigration and make English the official language, McClatchy-Tribune reported.

The packed meeting room in the Dallas suburb erupted in cheers when the council unanimously approved ordinances that mandate that nearly all official business be conducted in English, prohibit landlords from renting to people who cannot prove their citizenship or legal status, and require city police to work with federal immigration officials to target "criminal aliens."

A law to make English the official language passed in Hazleton, Pa., in July, but a judge stayed on constitutional grounds the implementation of an ordinance that would fine landlords who rent to undocumented immigrants and businesses that employ them.

More than 50 municipalities nationwide have considered, approved or rejected similar resolutions and laws, according to the Associated Press

The Taneytown resolution, which calls for all city government business to be conducted in English except where prohibited by state or federal law, was submitted this summer by Councilman Paul E. Chamberlain Jr.

"This issue is not about giving up your native tongue," Chamberlain said during last night's council meeting. "All we are asking is, if you become a U.S. citizen, you learn to speak English. What is so controversial about making English our official language?"

Chamberlain made the English-only issue central to his campaign for a state Senate seat, but lost in the Republican primary.

Some said Chamberlain's crusade was an election-year ploy. "It's not about me," he said recently. "It's about we as a city. This is what the people feel we should have."

Councilman James L. McCarron denounced the measure. In his more than 22 years on the council, he said, no one ever came forward with a comment or complaint who didn't speak English.

"I have no problem making English the official language of the state of Maryland or even America, but to make it the official language of Taneytown is simply a nonissue," McCarron said. "It's not a unity resolution. It's a disunity one."

In a meeting that also had bicycle safety, snow removal and water allocation on the agenda, the English Language Unity Resolution passed swiftly, with little debate. There was no opportunity for public comment from the several dozen people filling the small meeting room.

No one could say what impact the resolution will have.

While Hazleton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act has been put on hold until February, Hispanic immigrants already have started to leave in droves, said City Council President Joseph Yannuzzi.

"Just passing the ordinance has caused the illegal immigrants to leave," he said. "Most of the towns that surround us are passing it, too. Now they're going to Scranton."

There are far fewer immigrants to drive away in Taneytown. About 1.5 percent of the city's more than 5,000 residents described themselves as Latino or Hispanic in the 2000 Census - and only 37 Taneytown residents reported that they spoke English less than "very well."

Taneytown's English-only resolution might stand legal muster, but similarly amending the city charter could violate state law, said Elizabeth Alex, Baltimore manager of CASA of Maryland, an immigrants rights group.

A 2002 law requires all state agencies to provide interpreters and to translate crucial documents into any language spoken by 3 percent of the population.

"The ordinance goes too far to the extreme," said Alex, who attended last night's meeting. "Where it becomes tricky is when an agency has a mix of city and state funding and employees. There definitely could be some legal ramifications."

At a Taneytown City Council workshop Wednesday, several residents questioned the need for such a resolution, Alex said.

"For such a small number of people that would be affected, it seemed to them like a waste of the council's and the residents' time," she said. "People were also unhappy about the kind of image they would be sending to folks outside of Taneytown. Immigrants and nonimmigrants alike might feel unwelcome."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland sent a letter to Taneytown's mayor and council last week, urging them to reject the resolution and any related law. The Rev. Hilario Avendano, who leads a weekly Spanish Mass at St. John Roman Catholic Church in Westminster, also wrote a letter in opposition to the measures, Alex said.

Two decades of attempts to make English the official language of Maryland have not succeeded.

In 1994, the General Assembly passed such a bill, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer. Another was vetoed in 1995 by Gov. Parris N. Glendening.

Later efforts never reached the governor's desk, including bills introduced in the past two years by Del. Patrick L. McDonough, a Republican who represents parts of Baltimore and Harford counties.

McDonough supported the Taneytown resolution and said he would try to get a similar bill through the Assembly next year. Bills to require driver's license applicants to speak English and establish English as Baltimore County's official language should also come up for votes, McDonough said.

Taneytown was incorporated in 1754 and is named for Raphael Taney, one of the original land grantees, according to the Web site of the Carroll County city. He shared an ancestor with Roger Brooke Taney, a chief justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the notorious decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford that denied U.S. citizenship to blacks in 1857.

As the child of German immigrants, former Taneytown Mayor Henry C. Heine said he had a personal reason to oppose the measure.

"It's about creating we's and they's," he said after the council's vote. "There's no need for that. If you're coming to this country, you're coming here for a reason. What kind of a message is this that we're sending?"

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It should be noted that Farmers Branch, Texas, also passed a resolution last night making English the official language of that Dallas suburb.

We need to just get a federal law passed and be done with it.

Texas Town Considers Anti-Illegals Bill
1. By ANABELLE GARAY
AP
FARMERS BRANCH, Texas (AP) - This Dallas suburb could become the first city in Texas to adopt a sweeping ordinance intended to keep out illegal immigrants, a cause for concern among its large minority population.

More than 50 municipalities nationwide have considered, passed or rejected laws banning landlords from leasing to illegal immigrants, penalizing businesses that employ undocumented workers and making English the local official language.

But until now, that trend hasn't been matched in the Lone Star State.

"This is the first town in Texas that had the guts to do what's right," Susie Hart, who grew up in Farmers Branch, said during a recent demonstration outside City Hall. "The education system is tanking, health care has gone through the roof, everybody is bilingual." Such sentiments and the proposed ordinance trouble many people in Texas, where many Latino families can trace their roots here to the era before statehood.


http://news.aol.com/nation/story/_a/tex ... 2109990002

Originally Posted by dyehard39

Texas Town Considers Anti-Illegals Bill
1. By ANABELLE GARAY
AP
FARMERS BRANCH, Texas (AP) - This Dallas suburb could become the first city in Texas to adopt a sweeping ordinance intended to keep out illegal immigrants, a cause for concern among its large minority population.

More than 50 municipalities nationwide have considered, passed or rejected laws banning landlords from leasing to illegal immigrants, penalizing businesses that employ undocumented workers and making English the local official language.

But until now, that trend hasn't been matched in the Lone Star State.

"This is the first town in Texas that had the guts to do what's right," Susie Hart, who grew up in Farmers Branch, said during a recent demonstration outside City Hall. "The education system is tanking, health care has gone through the roof, everybody is bilingual." Such sentiments and the proposed ordinance trouble many people in Texas, where many Latino families can trace their roots here to the era before statehood.


http://news.aol.com/nation/story/_a/tex ... 2109990002

The part in red is just a lie, particularly if you are talking about the Dallas area. Even when I was growing up the Hispanic population in Dallas was very low. I can't locate specific demographic information for the 1960s and 1970s, but our schools at the time were only about 5% Hispanic. the rate in the suburbs and in North Dallas was closer to 1-2%, but this was offset by older areas of town that had percentages as high as the low double digits. When my great-grandparents first arrived in the Dallas area in the late 1800s, there were no Hispanics to speak of. Most of the minorities in North Texas at that time were black or Indian.

Now, if you make the argument about San Antonio or the Rio Grande Valley, you could rightly say that many of the Mexican Americans have roots that go back before statehood, but people forget the size of the state of Texas and that there are plenty of regions of the country where that sort of distance (from those areas to Farmers Branch) would be two or three states removed.

How long til a judge rules it unconstitutional?