Panel urges steps to help Virginia’s immigrants

By Olympia Meola

Published: January 14, 2009

Ways to better address the needs of Virginia's foreign-born residents are among the dozens of recommendations made by the Governor's Commission on Immigration in its final report, released today.

Among the state-specific proposals are: shortening the amount of time from 10 to five years for a legal permanent resident to be eligible for Medicaid; and to join with private providers of English as a Second Language to make more English classes available.

The panel issued recommendations for the federal and state levels, which were relayed to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and the General Assembly and will be presented to the state's congressional delegation.

As of 2005, the state's foreign-born population reached 677,400 people, accounting for 8.95 percent of the state's total population, according to the report.

"The biggest thing there is that the federal government needs to do its job," said Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, chairman of the commission.

"It's been since 1986 -- 22 years -- since the federal government has addressed matters around immigration and that is what is creating the problem."

"The state is left holding the bag at a time when financially, none of us can afford it."

Also offered up are suggested ways to collect better data -- to have the Virginia Employment Commission work with agriculture groups to assess work force needs and to collect information on the cost of undocumented immigrants to the criminal justice system. The panel expressed support for creating an Office of Immigrant Assistance Services.

It appears no legislation has been introduced specifically relating to one of the proposals, Watkins said. And, with lawmakers trying to plug a $3.2 billion hole in the state's budget, it may increase the difficulty for some suggestions to come to fruition.

One, for example, would have local school districts include the percentage of ESL students in the calculation for state funding so localities with large ESL populations could get more money for instruction.

Estimated price tag for fiscal year 2010: $11.9 million.

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