WASHINGTON — More than 25 million U.S. residents are Limited English Proficient (LEP), about 80 percent of them immigrants. Language barriers can pose significant obstacles to integration into American society as well as access to vital public services and institutions such as schools, health care, emergency responders and the legal system.
Federal law requires that all programs that receive federal funds, including those run by state and local agencies, take steps to ensure language access in their services (in other words find ways to bridge the communications barrier with those who cannot speak, understand, read or write English fluently). Although there is a basic right and framework for promoting accessible services under federal law, these provisions do not apply to local or state services that do not receive federal funds, and often suffer from a lack of accountability and enforcement mechanisms. As a result, many states and localities have created their own laws and policies to better foster and govern language access in their jurisdictions.
A new report from the Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy analyzes the key elements of language access laws and policies across 40 states and localities. The study, A Framework for Language Access: Key Features of U.S. State and Local Language Access Laws and Policies, identifies the common elements and unique innovations adopted by state and local governments, both in terms of the duties assigned to agencies and departments and the systems and structures created to oversee, guide and enforce them.
The report’s authors, Jacob Hofstetter, Margie McHugh and Anna O’Toole, found numerous common provisions but also key areas of divergence in the responsibilities assigned to government agencies. Among them:
While less common than provisions guiding agency responsibilities, many of the laws and policies studied also include particularly innovative features that seek to make language access services more durable and responsive through oversight and enforcement mechanisms. These include:
“By detailing the various ways state and local governments have sought to improve language access via laws and policies, this analysis illuminates key design elements decisionmakers must consider in order to craft comprehensive policies,” Hofstetter, McHugh and O’Toole write. “With linguistic diversity growing across the country, such insights will be vital for states and localities looking to create and effectively manage language access services.”
Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/state-local-language-access-policies.
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The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, DC dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy is a crossroads for elected officials, researchers, state and local agency managers, grassroots leaders, local service providers and others who seek to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities today’s high rates of immigration create in local communities.