[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 50 (Thursday, April 27, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3028-S3030]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. CLELAND (for himself, and Mr. Coverdell):
  S. 2484. A bill to ensure that immigrant students and their families 
receive the services that the students and families need to 
successfully participated in elementary schools, secondary schools, and 
communities, in the United States, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.


                  THE IMMIGRANTS TO NEW AMERICANS ACT

 Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, there are an estimated 2.3 million 
foreign-born school children living in the U.S. today and more are 
arriving daily. This is placing increasing demands on our nation's 
schools and community organizations to help these newly arrived 
children and their families with becoming successful in America's 
schools and communities.
  These children began arriving here in large numbers in the 1990s in a 
wave of immigration that is rivaling the first and second waves of 
German, Irish, Polish and Scandinavian immigrants who arrived here in 
the late 1800s and early 1900s. Like those who have preceded them, our 
nation's newest immigrants have a strong desire to succeed in their new 
found homeland. Our challenge is to provide them with the support and 
services they need to achieve to high standards in our schools--and 
beyond--and in so doing we will all be the beneficiaries.
  The wave of immigrants settling into communities all across America 
is resulting in a significant increase in children with diverse 
linguistic and cultural backgrounds enrolling in our schools. For 
example, the Waterloo, Iowa school system is being challenged to teach 
400 Bosnian refugee children who came here without knowing our 
language, culture or customs. Schools in Wausau, Wisconsin are filled 
with Asian children wanting to achieve success in the United States. In 
Dalton, Georgia, 47% of the student population in the public schools 
are Mexican children eager to participate in their new schools and 
community. In Turner, Maine, the school-aged children of hundreds of 
recently arrived Mexican immigrant families are pouring into this rural 
town's schools.
  As these examples illustrate, the foreign-born, school-aged children 
living in our nation today constitute an increasingly significant 
portion of the population, not just in communities accustomed to large 
immigrant populations like New York, Los Angeles and Miami, but also 
non-traditional immigrant communities like Gainesville, Georgia and 
Fremont County, Idaho. According to recently released estimates, this 
trend will continue. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the recently 
arrived immigrant and refugee populations living here today will 
account for 75% of the total U.S. population growth over the next 50 
years. U.S. schools from Florida to Washington State are being 
increasingly challenged by these changing demographics. As Secretary of 
Education Richard Riley recently said, ``dealing with this kind of 
change requires creative thinking and an eagerness to adopt and to 
incorporate cultural and linguistic differences into the learning 
process.''
  We need to make sure that these children are served appropriately--
and that their families are as well. Studies have shown that where 
quality educational programs are joined with community-based services, 
immigrants have an increased opportunity to become an integral part of 
their community and their children are better prepared to achieve 
success in school.
  The recent influx of immigrants into U.S. communities calls for 
innovative and comprehensive solutions. Today, I am joined by my 
distinguished colleague from Georgia, Senator Paul Coverdell, in 
introducing the Immigrants to New Americans Act. This legislation would 
establish a competitive grant program within the Department

[[Page S3029]]

of Education to assist these school systems and communities that are 
experiencing a high number of immigrant families. Specifically, this 
new grant program would provide funding to partnerships of local 
school districts and community-based organizations for the development 
of model programs that assist immigrant children to achieve in U.S. 
schools and that provide services like parenting skills to their 
families as well as access to comprehensive community services, 
including health care, child care, job training and transportation.

  Senator Coverdell and I have both seen first hand the benefits of one 
community's program that brings togther teachers, community leaders and 
businesses in an innovative partnership to aid their linguistically and 
culturally diverse population. It is the Georgia Project and its 
mission is to assist immigrant children from Mexico achieve to higher 
standards in Dalton, Georgia's public schools.
  In recent years, the carpet and poultry industries in Dalton and 
surrounding Whitfield County experienced the need for a larger 
workforce. The city's visionary leaders encouraged Mexican immigrants 
to settle into their community to fill that need. The challenge has 
been in Dalton's public school system where Hispanic enrollment went 
from being just 4 percent ten years ago to over 47 percent today.
  To deal with this sizable increase, Dalton and Whitfield County 
public school administrators and business leaders formed a public-
private consortium. This consortium, known as The Georgia Project, 
initiated a teacher exchange program in 1996 with the University of 
Monterrey in Mexico. Today, seventeen Mexican teachers are helping to 
bridge the language and culture gap by serving as instructors, 
counselors and role models and providing Spanish language training to 
English-speaking students. In addition, Dalton Public School teachers 
spend a month in Monterrey, Mexico, each year learning first hand the 
culture, language and customs of the Mexican students they serve.
  There are other programs across the United States that address 
similar challenges experienced by the City of Dalton and Whitfield 
County. One such example is the Lao Family Project. This is a 
community-based refugee assistance organization that provides a wide 
range of parent-student services to Hmong and Vietnamese refugees in 
St. Paul, Minnesota in an effort to help parents become economically 
self-sufficient and their children succeed in school. The Lao Family 
Project's staff are bilingual/bicultural paraprofessionals who provide 
services that include adult English as a second language instruction 
and preschool literacy activities for children.
  In the rural communities of Healdsburg and Windsor, California, the 
Even Start program provides a variety of instructional and support 
services to low-income, recently arrived Mexican immigrant families and 
their preschool and elementary school children. The program focuses on 
increasing family involvement in their children's education, helping 
parents and children with their literacy skills, and offering English 
as a second language course. Many of the instructional activities for 
the parent's classes are coordinated with the classroom teachers to 
ensure consistency with what is being taught to both the parent and 
their children. One focus of these classes is to communicate what the 
children are learning in their regular classes so that parents can help 
their children at home.
  The Exemplary Multicultural Practices in Rural Education Program, or 
EMPIRE, operates in the Yakima region of rural Central Washington 
State, an area with a diverse mix of ethnic groups, including 
Caucasians, Hispanics, Native Americans, African Americans, and Asian 
Americans. The program promotes positive race relations and an 
appreciation for ethnic and cultural differences. It encourages schools 
to develop learning environments where children of all backgrounds can 
be successful in school and the community. With support from EMPIRE's 
board of advisors, each school designs and carries out its own projects 
based on local resources and needs. Schools in which EMPIRE is active 
plan a wide variety of programs and activities with emphasis on staff 
development, student awareness, parent involvement and improvement of 
curriculum and instruction.
  The Immigrants to New Americans Act is endorsed by the National 
Association for Bilingual Education, The National Council of La Raza, 
the League of United Latin American Citizens, the India Abroad Center 
for Political Awareness, and the National Korean American Service and 
Education Consortium.
  I would like to close with the words of Education Secretary Richard 
Riley: ``Regardless of the cultural diversity of our nation's students, 
there is one unifying factor in their lives, education, the primary and 
shared source of hope, opportunity and success. It is our duty as a 
nation to ensure that every ethnically diverse community has the 
opportunity to achieve a quality education and the success that 
accompanies it--just as we have done for generations of Americans 
before them.''
  Our nation's communities are being transformed by the diverse culture 
of their citizens. Successfully addressing this change will require 
leadership, creative thinking and an eagerness to encourage and promote 
the promise that these new challenges bring. By doing so, we as a 
nation will better serve all our children--the best guarantee we have 
of ensuring America's strength, well into the 21st century and beyond.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print their letters of 
support in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                          National Association for


                                          Bilingual Education,

                                   Washington, DC, April 19, 2000.
     Hon. Max Cleland,
     U.S. Senate, Senate Dirksen Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Cleland: On behalf of the National Association 
     for Bilingual Education, I wish to commend you on your 
     introduction of legislation to help ensure that immigrant 
     students and their families will receive the services that 
     they require in our schools and communities.
       America's rapidly changing demographics make it imperative 
     that adequate services be available to our nation's 
     newcomers, so that they too will attain the American dream 
     and help make our country stronger. Your bill clearly 
     recognizes the contributions that immigrants have made to the 
     United States over its history, and takes a definitive step 
     forward in the spirit of empowerment through education and 
     community-based collaboration.
       NABE strongly believes that given the appropriate tools and 
     support students will rise to the highest of levels of 
     achievement. Our endorsement of this forward-thinking 
     legislation is a reaffirmation of this philosophy, and we 
     hope your colleagues in Congress will grant it prompt 
     approval.
       Once again, I commend you on the introduction of this 
     important piece of legislation, and I ask that you not 
     hesitate to contact me at (202) 898-1829 if there is anything 
     NABE can do to help your efforts in this respect.
           Sincerely,
                                                      Delia Pompa,
     Executive Director.
                                  ____



                                  National Council of La Raza,

                                   Washington, DC, April 26, 2000.
     Senator Max Cleland,
     Senate Dirksen Office Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Cleland: The National Council of La Raza 
     (NCLR) thanks you for your effort to facilitate and enhance 
     the participation of immigrants in American society. In 
     particular, we would like to express our support for your 
     legislation, the ``Immigrants to New Americans Act,'' which 
     would provide education, adult English as a Second Language 
     (ESL), job training, and other important services to 
     immigrants in ``emerging'' communities.
       Over the past decade, dramatic shifts have occurred in the 
     immigrant population in the United States, particularly among 
     Hispanic immigrants. Many Hispanic immigrants have settled in 
     areas where their presence had previously been virtually 
     invisible. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau determined 
     that the South (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, 
     Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee) 
     experienced a 93% increase in its Hispanic population from 
     1990 to 1998, far outpacing growth in ``traditional'' 
     Hispanic states like California, New York, and Texas, where 
     increases hovered around 32%. While the U.S. Census Bureau 
     estimated the total Hispanic population in the South in 1998 
     to be 640,870, unofficial estimates place the Hispanic 
     population of both Georgia and North Carolina at close to 
     500,000 in each state. Midwestern states have also 
     experienced significant increases in their Hispanic 
     populations during this period, such as Iowa (74%), Minnesota 
     (61%), and Nebraska (96%). Many of these Hispanics are 
     immigrants in search of employment.
       The emergence of new immigrant populations has created a 
     significant need for

[[Page S3030]]

     educational and social services. The search for employment 
     opportunities has historically been the primary impetus for 
     the migration of immigrants. An ever-increasing availability 
     of permanent employment has provided the opportunity for many 
     immigrants to settle with their spouses and children, often 
     in areas where previously there had been seasonal 
     agricultural work available. However, these opportunities 
     have largely been in unskilled or low-skilled, low-paying 
     jobs, such as the textile, poultry, and construction 
     industries in the South; meat- and vegetable-packing in the 
     Midwest; and light manufacturing and service-sector work in 
     major cities like New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston. As 
     these new immigrant populations form permanent settlements, 
     they often face social isolation and disconnection from 
     mainstream society.
       Emerging immigrant communities face a multitude of issues 
     in adapting to their new environment. Among the needs 
     identified in these communities are access to rigorous 
     standards-based curriculum in the public schools, effective 
     parental involvement in their children's education, adult 
     English-language acquisition programs, quality child care, 
     and employment and training. Your legislation would help 
     local communities to provide services in each of these 
     critical areas.
       NCLR believes that the ``Immigrants to New Americans Act'' 
     can have a significant, positive impact on the lives of many 
     immigrant children and families, and on the communities in 
     which they are settling. That is why we strongly support your 
     legislation and encourage the entire Congress to do the same.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Raul Yzaguirre,
     President.
                                  ____

                                            League of United Latin


                                            American Citizens,

                                   Washington, DC, April 27, 2000.
     Hon. Max Cleland,
     Dirksen Senate Building, U.S. Senate
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Cleland: The League of United Latin American 
     citizens (LULAC) wishes to thank you for your efforts at 
     facilitating and enhancing the ability of immigrant children 
     and their families to achieve success in America's schools 
     and communities. We would like to strongly support your 
     legislation, ``The Immigrants to New Americans Act.''
       We believe that this act will greatly enhance the ability 
     for schools and community-based services to develop model 
     programs aimed at helping immigrant students and their 
     families to receive the tools that they need to succeed.
       We find that this closely supports our mission and beliefs 
     that immigrants should be supported in any way possible. 
     LULAC is the oldest and largest Latino civil rights 
     organization in the United States. LULAC advances the 
     economic condition, educational attainment, political 
     influence, health and civil rights of Hispanic Americans 
     through community-based programs operating at more than 700 
     LULAC Councils nationwide.
       Once again, thank you for putting forth this effort to help 
     those who need a little help getting started in this country. 
     Your legislation will help to carry this country in a 
     positive way well into the 21st century.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Brent Wilkes,
     Executive Director.
                                  ____

                                           The India Abroad Center


                                      for Political Awareness,

                                   Washington, DC, April 24, 2000.
     Hon. Max Cleland,
     Dirksen Senate Building, U.S. Senate
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Cleland: The India Abroad Center for Political 
     Awareness would like to endorse your Immigrants to New 
     Americans Act. We believe that this bill would provide a 
     strong support mechanism to those in the United States that 
     need it the most, our immigrants. Also we would be glad to 
     publish your op-ed piece on this bill in the newspaper India 
     Abroad which reaches nearly 250,000 people in the United 
     States. Thank you again for sponsoring this bill.
           Sincerely,
                                                Prem Shunmugavelu,
     Associate.

                          ____________________