© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Addressing the Immigration Status, Culture, and Language Connections in LEP Planning National Summit on Language Access in the Courts October 1-3, 2012

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. John Martin National Summit on Language Access in the Courts

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Description of the LEP Population ● 52 Million US residents over five years of age (20%) do not speak English at home. ● 8 Million more than ten years ago. ● 25.2 Million considered LEP (9%). ● 80% LEP increase between 1990 and ● California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey are the big five but increasing need across entire nation. ● 1990 Top languages were Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian. ● 2010 Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Tagalog and Russian. ● Huge variation among states and communities. 2

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Description of the Origins of LEP Population ● 40 Million foreign born US residents ● About 17 Million (42%) are Naturalized US Citizens ● About 12 Million in US lawfully but non-US Citizens ● Remaining 11 Million foreign born residents are in US unlawfully (Over 63% of unlawful FB population have been in US 10 or more years.) ● Additional 62 Million non-US residents visited US in

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. The Language, Culture, Immigration Status Nexus ● There long has been a nexus among language, culture, and immigration status but that nexus increasingly has become more complicated. ● Individually, language, culture, and immigration status are important especially from a procedural fairness/justice prospective and the nexus among the three also must be considered. 4

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Why Language Matters in LEP Service Provision ● Ability of all court participants – including litigants, family members, victims, witnesses, and jurors – to communicate, understand, and participate in all aspects of a court case is fundamental to American Justice. ● Language is the key to participation and ultimately providing justice. ● Language is also key to providing insights about culture and immigration status. ● Structure, contents, and forms of Standard American English increasingly not shared by greater numbers of LEP in courts. ● Notions of procedural fairness and justice – and compliance with DOJ and ABA expectations – can become meaningless without good language assistance. 5

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Why Culture Matters in LEP Service Provision Culture has a great influence on how people: ● define justice, conflict, disorder, authority, and many other critical aspect of justice; ● determine when and how it is appropriate to involve third parties – including the courts – in resolving problems and conflicts; ● communicate and describe events, causes, and consequences; and ● fashion responses or solutions. ● Also, culture profoundly affects notions of respect, voice, neutrality, and trust. ● Increasing gap between Anglo/European based culture of the courts and greater and greater numbers of LEP court users. 6

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Why Immigration Status Matters in LEP Service Provision ● Immigration status can greatly complicate many aspects of criminal, civil, family, juvenile, and juvenile cases, including many aspects that might be more “routine” in cases involving US citizens. ● State court action can profoundly affect immigration status – it can affect an immigrant individual and their family’s ability to be in the US., work, and be eligible for benefits both in the long and short-term, including ability to become a naturalized US citizen. 7

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Implications of the the Language, Culture, and Immigration Status Nexus on LEP Planning ● Recognize that language assistance alone is only part of the task – need to plan for and address the L/C/IS nexus ● Know the composition and the needs of an increasingly sizeable portion of the LEP population. ● Need to know the potential implications of L/C/IS nexus on every aspect of case processing. ● Need to work with often less familiar – to the courts -- groups of stakeholders to fashion more responsive court service strategies. 8

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Resources to Assist LEP Planning and Service Provision ● Materials on conference website and NCSC materials. ● For demographic data and other language access resources ● Chhandasi Pandya, Policy Analyst, Migration Policy Institute ● John A. Martin 9

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Resources to Assist LEP Planning and Service Provision ● The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) provides language access training materials and regularly incorporates issues relating to this topic into its annual conferences. NLADA hosts two conferences 1) Annual Conference in December, and 2) NLADA’s language access resources are most easily accessed by searching for the term “language access” into the homepage search bar. The Equal Justice Conference in the bring is a forum that brings together libraries, legal aid, and courts to talk about innovation in the delivery of legal services. Courts should consider attending EJC conferences to learn about innovations in LEP services deliveries across the nation. ( ) ● The National Language Access Advocates Network, or NLAAN, is a national organization that supports and engages in effective advocacy to eradicate language discrimination and promote language rights. N- LAAN provides a forum for language access advocates to develop expertise, share resources and devise strategy. It serves as a voice for its members in advocating for better policies and laws and for more effective enforcement of language rights. Court employees can to visit the NLAAN webpage as many of the resources posted in the news are from public sources and feature LEP developments across all federal funding streams, however they will not receive full access to the site, as this is an advocates site and government employees do not meet the criteria. ( ● State language access coalitions, where they exist—Washington (WASCLA), Washington DC, Massachusetts, Louisiana 10

© 2012 Center For Public Policy Studies. All rights reserved. Resources to Assist LEP Planning and Service Provision Volunteers from the legal aid community have offered to serve as resources (note: you do not need to work in the state in which these individuals practice in order to reach out to them) Laura Abel, Deputy Director National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law School 55 Fifth Avenue, Room 908 New York, NY Moriah Nelson (available at this address until June 2013) Massachusetts Language Access Project Coordinator (617) x 138 Claudia Johnson LawHelp Interactive Program Manager 11