Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 4, No. 3 | Easing the Transition from Immigrant to Citizen, page 3

These programs are designed not only to recognize and help develop the ways in which immigrants contribute positively to our society but also to preserve and enhance the cultural diversity that is a strength of our country. In Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting it Right (Public Affairs, 2006), author Michele Wucker, who is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School in New York City, points out the importance of ensuring a heterogeneous society and why efforts to encourage diversity in our culture help enrich the lives of all Americans. “As a country, we should encourage efforts to honor the little parts of daily life, the quirks and habits that make a people,” Wucker writes. “We must reinforce the values that brought us together—freedom, respect for rights, justice, equal opportunity, and the desire to build and progress—and work together to amend the areas where we have failed to honor those values.”

The Illinois executive order recognizes the contributions of immigrants in economic, social, cultural and political venues in Illinois and the nation. “The executive order helps maximize the assets that immigrants bring to our state,” says Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the ICIRR. Research shows that Illinois immigrants fill gaps at both the low and high ends of the labor market. In Illinois there is a higher percent of native-born people who have high school diplomas, yet a greater percent of the immigrant population has bachelor degrees and the immigrant population also has a higher average salary. The state has a number of corporations that operate on the global level, notably those in the pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors, including companies that manufacture farm equipment, and Illinois also is home to world-class hospitals and has a large convention and tourism economy. The need is great for immigrants in all these areas, including those who are bilingual or multilingual whose skills are valuable in the hospitality sector, those who hold medical, engineering or other advanced degrees and those who work changing beds, bussing tables and providing various types of essential help in service areas. Immigrants are also a powerful part of the housing economy, with more than 80 percent of the increase in suburban home purchases in Cook County from 2000 to 2005 attributed to immigrants.

Other ICIRR Efforts
The ICIRR web site (www.icirr.org) keeps tabs on what is happening regarding immigration nationally and locally, and encourages immigrants and their supporters to take action, urging them to march with their feet in rallies such as the annual unity march for immigration as well as to march with their fingers by calling their senators and sharing their thoughts on the need for comprehensive immigration reform on a national level.

Links on the web site lead visitors to sites of other ICIRR projects, including Illinois Is Home, which helps the nearly three-and-one-half million Illinois immigrants and their children, with a recent primary focus on the proposed Road Safety and Mandatory Auto Insurance Act, HB 1100. The executive summary of Safety and Savings: How Drivers’ Certificates Would Lower Insurance Premiums and Make Our Roads Safer, reports that 250,000 unlicensed and uninsured immigrant motorists drive in Illinois. To address this issue ICIRR advocates drivers’ certificates, which have a different look than a driver’s license, and thus cannot be used as an identification card nationally. However, the value of the certificates is that they qualify the holder to purchase automobile insurance. As the Safety and Savings report states, since immigrants account for more than $6 million in expenses associated with automobile collisions, drivers in the state would each save nearly $60 annually in insurance premiums if half of the immigrant drivers had insurance. That figure would climb to $88 if three-quarters of the state’s immigrants were insured. This bill, which was passed by the Illinois House of Representatives, marks the first time a bill that favors undocumented immigrants has been passed by this legislative body. Hoyt says, “It is currently stalled in the Illinois Senate, two votes short of a majority, by the same anti-immigrant backlash that killed the national immigration reform. We are proud of coming as far as we did, but frustrated by the viciously polarized nature of the debate on the undocumented.”

The New Americans Democracy Project (NADP) encourages new citizens to register and vote. Their eighteen fellows fanned out around the state to work at a grass-roots level prior to the 2006 election, enlisting more than 1,550 volunteers who registered more than 16,500 new voters. The detail-oriented volunteers sought voters by going door-to-door, making telephone calls, sending letters and following through with more contacts on Election Day. NADP also enlisted the aid of 39 lawyers to ensure “election protection” at the ballot box.

Eun Young Lee, who emigrated to the U.S. from South Korea in 1992, when she was nine years old, has learned that her vote means a great deal. Lee is Citizenship and Youth Coordinator of the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center (www.chicagokrcc.org), an organization that receives funding from the New Americans Initiative. She had to learn English quickly when her family moved to Illinois and no one in her suburban elementary school—even youngsters of Korean heritage—spoke Korean. Lee remembers that although her teachers were very helpful, she sometimes would spend five or more hours doing homework because of difficulties with reading and writing English. But she persevered and soon became fluent in English. When her family members applied for green cards, the applications were mishandled by their lawyer, and they were delayed applying for citizenship. “I figured, what’s the difference, except being able to vote,” Lee explains. But through her job, which involves meeting with both state and federal legislators, she has become more aware of the power of the vote, and she proudly proclaims that her mother became a citizen on Valentine’s Day 2007 and that she, her father and brother have all recently filed citizenship applications. “I realized that the right to vote should never be taken for granted,” Lee says. “I see the direct effect a vote has and how much I can give back to the community. I am lucky to be a Korean immigrant who speaks both English and Korean fluently, and I want to use this blessing to help empower other members of the Korean community.”

A Model
With the Illinois executive order and the New Americans Initiative the first of their kind in the nation, they are in the spotlight as a model for other states exploring ways to welcome and assist their immigrant population. In assessing the ICIRR experience, Lisa Thakkar says that it is important to have a partnership approach with government, funders and external constituents and that the partners, especially those within the state government, must be strong. She says it is also useful to initiate a planning process with a measurable programmatic goal such as a citizenship program of English classes to make it more likely that the recommendations will be accomplished and not be “just a report.” Thakkar says it is important to keep the governor personally engaged and that in hindsight, the ICIRR should have begun with housing, home ownership, workforce development and entrepreneurship issues, since they spotlight the contributions of immigrants better than the softer issue of human services.

Next page: New Jersey is another state with a rapidly growing foreign-born population, and on August 6, 2007, that state’s governor also signed an executive order that will have a direct impact on its immigrant population.

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