Maryland

Chanting “Yes, we can!” in English, Spanish and French, a crowd of mostly Hispanic men and women gathered near Maryland’s State House last night in hopes of stemming what they say is a growing backlash in the legislature over illegal immigration.

Participants in the rally, held on the eve of another round of General Assembly hearings on immigration bills, lighted several hundred candles and cheered local legislators and advocates, and national civil rights leaders. Most of the measures seek to curb or cut off benefits to those who cannot prove they are in the United States legally.”*

*From: http://www.baltimoresun.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

On Valentine’s Day, Marina Aparicio of Montgomery Village celebrated her 15th birthday in part by heading to a two-story house in Gaithersburg where she received small gifts and birthday wishes from friends she met at Identity Inc.”

She spends most of her days after school with other Latino youth at the Olde Towne nonprofit.

‘‘My birthday is really hard because … I remember my time in El Salvador,” she said. ‘‘All my birthdays, I had my grandmother, she took us out, we ate outside — it was really nice being with her, all the love that she gave us.”*

*From: http://www.gazette.net
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Mr. Vasquez is one of two Hispanic liaisons for the department, charged with reaching out to the Spanish-speaking community and improving relations with police. He attends soccer and fishing camps, hosts anti-gang youth meetings for teens, and speaks at Neighborhood Watch and other community groups.

“Anything in the city that involves Hispanic people, I am involved,” he said.

But that’s only one facet of his job.”*

*From: http://www.hometownannapolis.com
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The Annapolis city council is set to tackle the issue of requiring some workers to speak English.

Alderman Samuel E. Shropshire planned to introduce legislation last night that would require at least one member of any utility crew working underground to speak English. He called the bill “an important public safety measure.”"*

*From: http://www.baltimoresun.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Illinois Sen Barack Obama (D) made an unexpected stop this afternoon in Silver Spring, at Mayorga Coffee Roasters, a Latino-owned shop. The event had not been announced publicly and was intended to be a chance for an intimate meeting between the presidential candidate and local Latino business owners and elected officials.

When he arrived, he was surrounded by such a crush of cameras and reporters that few got a chance for long talks. Still, Obama walked around the store, greeting supporters and asking children for their names. Eight-year old Elizabeth Cove and her brother Jack, 12, got a chance to talk to the candidate, then ran back to their mother literally hugging and squealing with delight. “It was the best experience!” Elizabeth Cove said.”*

*From: http://blog.washingtonpost.com
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The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office will hold a press conference Monday to announce a new program that would allow deputies to deport illegal immigrants.”*

*From: http://www.gazette.net
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Today more than a dozen lawmakers who are newcomers to the United States or the children or grandchildren of immigrants plan to kick off a New Americans Caucus. The members, who represent some of the most diverse parts of Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, say they are determined to push back against a national anti-immigration mood they see seeping into the legislature. They say they intend to fight bills introduced by conservative Republicans that would deny services to illegal immigrants. The coalition members argue that the bills would also unfairly stigmatize legal immigrants.”*

*From: http://www.washingtonpost.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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View more “Did You Know?” facts in our “Did You Know?” section

From: http://www.washingtonpost.com
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White residents account for 58.3 percent of the state’s population, according to 2006 U.S. Census Bureau data. But they make up only 47 percent of the student body this school year. The new majority belongs to blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities.

The demographic changes are manifesting themselves in the classroom in unexpected ways and with breathtaking speed. Schools in Charles County, in rural, largely white Southern Maryland, are now majority black. Next door, in Prince George’s County, Bladensburg Elementary School has gone from majority black to majority Hispanic in less than seven years.”*

*From: http://www.washingtonpost.com
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Gov. Martin O’Malley rejected a proposal yesterday to issue separate driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants and legal residents, saying that Maryland should comply with a federal security law by requiring immigrants to prove they are here legally before they can drive.

The governor’s decision effectively reversed a long-standing policy that made Maryland one of only seven states that allow driving privileges for illegal immigrants. It came just days after his transportation secretary had briefed lawmakers on a proposed two-tier system that would have provided some latitude.”*

*From: http://www.washingtonpost.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

There are fewer than two dozen foreign-born residents in this historic but ailing town of 6,700 near the Pennsylvania border, including a Mexican landscaper and a Chinese family that owns a restaurant on Main Street. There are no store signs in Spanish, no crowded boarding houses, no men looking for jobs on the corners.

Yet this month, the bitter regional and national debate over illegal immigration has reached remote Taneytown. It has divided local officials, drawn activists and TV crews to town meetings and exposed deep emotional fault lines in a small, largely white farming community that feels both afraid it might be overwhelmed by poor Hispanics who are in the country illegally and ashamed it might be tarred as racist and intolerant.”*

*From: http://www.washingtonpost.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Eastern Shore Sen. E.J. Pipkin foresees a “disturbing scenario of vans full of people who are here illegally coming to get a license” if Maryland and the county don’t do more to seal the borders.
“Right now Maryland is a sanctuary state and that’s wrong,” he said.

Mr. Pipkin and most of the other candidates for Rep. Wayne Gilchrest’s congressional seat have put staunching illegal immigration at the top of their platforms.”*

*From: http://www.hometownannapolis.com
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The Charles County Sheriff’s Office recently began offering an English as a Second Language (ESL) course to Spanish-speaking inmates at the Charles County Detention Center.

The class is offered through an agreement with the Charles County Public Schools Adult Education Program, which also provides General Educational Development diploma classes to other inmates. In the ESL program, two classes of seven to 10 inmates meet weekly to learn and practice English. “*

*From: http://somd.com
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December marks the fifth anniversary of the incorporation of the Mid-Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Jorge Ribas hopes next year will be better.

The Hispanic chamber started as a volunteer-run organization with two business memberships, said Ribas, chamber president.

Today, it has a professional staff of nine, 400 business memberships and 35 corporate sponsors.”*

*From: http://www.fredericknewspost.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Giant Food announced that all of its Pharmacies now offer Spanish language prescription labels and information. The service is being offered as a convenience to Giant Pharmacy customers who prefer to receive their prescription information in Spanish and ensures Spanish-speaking customers have clear and complete instructions when receiving prescriptions.

“We are very pleased to offer this new service to our pharmacy customers,” said John Fegan, senior vice president of pharmacy operations for Giant Food. “We serve a diverse customer base, and this will enable us to better serve our Spanish-speaking customers.”

Giant Food, in conjunction with Language Line Services, also began testing a new program that provides limited English speaking pharmacy customers immediate access to live interpreters who speak more than 170 languages. The service, which works similar to a telephone “conference call” between the pharmacist, customer, and interpreter, will be tested in 20 select Giant Pharmacies and is free to all Giant Pharmacy customers.

“This program is designed to provide pharmacy customers immediate access to professional interpreters, in an average of 15 seconds, who can explain instructions, side effects and precautions for medications in their preferred language, while reducing potential medication usage errors,” Fegan said. “For years, our customers have counted on us to give them excellent service, and this program gives us the opportunity to make it even better.”

“Communicating through a professional interpreter is the surest way for limited English speaking patients to safely and accurately take their medications,” said Louis Provenzano, Language Line Services’ President and Chief Operating Officer. “By eliminating language barriers within its pharmacies, Giant Food shows a genuine commitment to all of its customers, regardless of language.”

For additional information, and a list of Giant Pharmacy locations that offer free immediate access to interpreters, please call 1-800-4MYGIANT or visit

While the number of students with limited English proficiency is growing rapidly in Maryland schools, the number of teachers trained to work with them remains disproportionately small.

Elementary students whose native language is not English more than doubled in the last eight years — from 25,397 in 2000 to 57,060 in 2007, according to the Maryland State Department of Education.

But the department said only 1,738 teachers in the state hold certification to teach ESOL, or English to Speakers of Other Languages. “*

Federal agents seized 924 illegal immigrants in Maryland in a special crackdown on fugitive and criminal immigrants during fiscal year 2007, officials said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement created the Fugitive Operations Program to track down undocumented immigrants who fail to comply with immigration court rulings or do not appear for immigration hearings, said Ernestine Fobbs, an ICE public affairs officer for Maryland.”*

After the state legislature failed to grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition in last spring’s session, Delegate Victor Ramirez (D-Prince George’s) defended the proposal in a speech on the campus yesterday.

Ramirez is the co-sponsor of a bill that grants students who have spent two years in Maryland high schools in-state tuition regardless of immigration status. The bill passed the House of Delegates in March but was stalled in a Senate subcommittee as the legislative session drew to a close. “*

Catholic Charities is to sign an agreement with three Baltimore medical centers today to develop a new health care center for Hispanics and other immigrants who lack health care coverage.

The center could open early next year in the second floor of the Catholic Charities’ Hispanic Apostolate at 430 S. Broadway in Fells Point, according to the aid group.”*

Catholic Charities signed an agreement Tuesday with three medical centers to provide health care for uninsured Hispanics and other immigrants, a program organizers hope will provide needed services for a vulnerable population as well as help ease pressure on crowded emergency rooms.

The agreement with St. Joseph Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and St. Agnes HealthCare expands upon a mobile clinic that has been treating about 2,000 people a year - a number organizers hope to double in the first year. Volunteer doctors, nurses and others will see patients at a new health center in a heavily Latino neighborhood a few blocks south of Johns Hopkins Hospital.”*

In an attempt to improve an international scouting system widely considered among the worst in Major League Baseball, the Orioles have agreed to an extended lease on a new baseball academy in the Dominican Republic, just east of the island’s capital city of Santo Domingo.

The facility, which is more than half-completed, will be in Boca Chica, between Santo Domingo and San Pedro de Macoris, where the Orioles currently run a Spartan operation that basically consists of two barracks and a field for 50 players.

Expected to be up and running by April 1, the new Orioles facility will have two full fields, will house 75 players and includes full lodging, classrooms and a kitchen. It is part of a complex being rented by five other teams.”*

“Maryland is not the most permissive state when it comes to immigration, said immigration expert William Hanna, however it “is probably in the top half of states in the United States that have been more receptive,” to immigrants.

“Some people will obviously be inclined to move to places where they won’t be harassed,” said the University of Maryland, College Park professor.

Maryland has generally been more relaxed about illegal immigration than Virginia. For example, it is one of only nine states that doesn’t check immigration status before issuing a driver’s license. “*

“A public forum last week promoting the inclusion of Latinos into county life, wound up revealing where the barriers still lie.

The event drew about 130 people, including regional Latino advocacy leaders and county government heads.

The forum was hosted by the police department. But an individual familiar with its planning said the intent was not to portray the Latino population as primarily a law-enforcement challenge.”*

“The lone blackboard in the library at Heritage Baptist Church is being filled with the same question and answer over and over again.
“What is the supreme law of the land?” Dixie Miller asks the class of seven Hispanic immigrants as she writes the question on the chalk board.

The students read it aloud, learning through repetition how to speak and write the question in English.”*

“Local Hispanic community and business leaders spoke out Thursday against a U.S. policy that would require them to fire any employees who aren’t in the records of the Social Security Administration.

The policy, implemented by the Department of Homeland Security as part of immigration law enforcement, would put an unfair burden on large and small business alike to police their own employees to prevent undocumented immigration, local opponents of the measure said.”*