Immigrant Integration Task Force Meeting
January 27, 2015
The Belmont Center
700 Parkwood Ave, Charlotte, NC 28205
MINUTES
Attendance:
Task Force Members: Nancy Carter, Keri Carver, Wayne Cooper (in place of Monica Colin),
Owen Furuseth, Daniel Hernandez, Omar Jorge, Stefan Latorre, Thanh-Thu Luong,
Marianne Lyall-Knusel, Tin Nguyen, Jennifer Pearsall, Jennifer Roberts, Wil Russell, Robert
Shore, Kristin Wade, Curt White, Lacey Williams, Emily Zimmern
City Staff: Alexis Gordon, Krystal King
Absent: Diego Anselmo, Mariana De Luca, Gautam Desai, Ellen Dubin, Steven Garfinkel, Mo
Idlibby, Anika Khan, Victoria Manning, Amy Michelone, Kim Vazquez, Sam Wazan
1. Welcome and Approval of Minutes
Mr. Latorre (Chair) called the meeting to order at 3:10 p.m.
Mr. Latorre presented the December 18, 2014, meeting minutes to be voted on. Mr.
Furuseth moved to approve the minutes. Mr. Russell seconded the motion. All voted in
favor. The motion carried.
2. Adopt Recommendations Sections 1-4
Mr. Latorre directed the Task Force members’ attention to the handout of the draft
recommendations and reviewed the changes that had been made based on the feedback
received at the Public Feedback Session on January 15, 2015 (see Appendix A). All changes
are highlighted in yellow.
Mr. Latorre explained that he, Ms. Zimmern, and Ms. Gordon met with Ron Kimble, Deputy
City Manager; Ann Wall, Assistant City Manager; Pat Mumford, Neighborhood and Business
Services Director; Bill Cronin, Economic Development Director; and Anna Schleunes, Senior
Assistant City Attorney, to discuss the draft recommendations. Ms. Zimmern commented
that the city staff were impressed with the Task Force’s body of work and appreciated how
comprehensive the recommendations are. They also appreciated that while the Task Force
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is providing strategies for what it thinks needs to be done based on the feedback from the
community and the research done throughout the process, the “how” and “how much” are
appropriately being left to City Council and city staff to decide. In order to honor and
respect the Task Force’s process and what was heard from the community, city staff asked
Mr. Latorre and Ms. Zimmern to present the recommendations and then City Council and
city staff would determine any legal barriers that would prevent them from taking any
action.
Mr. Latorre then reviewed each of the changes that had been made to the draft
recommendations.
Regarding the recommendation about installing crosswalks and sidewalks under the Public
Safety section, Dr. Furuseth commented that the recommendation needs some sort of
introductory sentence to explain why it is being included. Ms. Roberts suggested including
bike lanes and paths in addition to crosswalks and sidewalks. For example, the wording
could be changed to “Continuing to expand pedestrian safety by installing crosswalks,
sidewalks, bicycle lanes, and right of ways in neighborhoods with high pedestrian use.”
Mr. White asked if the Task Force should first check with the Charlotte Department of
Transportation (CDOT) to learn what their criteria and priorities are for installing
sidewalks and crosswalks. Ms. Gordon responded that the Task Force will be finalizing and
voting on the recommendations today, and that the city management team she, Mr. Latorre
and Ms. Zimmern met with earlier in the week said it would be acceptable to include a few
items that show intent and the city can determine if the need is already being met.
The Task Force said they are open to a variety of language when wording the
recommendations list correctly. Curt said that we should check with the city; they already
have a program dedicated to pedestrian safety in order to prioritize the necessary criteria.
Ms. Gordon reminded everyone that because the recommendations need to be finalized,
there is not time to research pedestrian/ transportation criteria. And to be mindful of what
the city managers team stated earlier in the week: that it is okay to have a few things that
show the intent of what the public has asked us about.
There are several areas where pedestrians are crossing with oncoming traffic 45 mph cars.
Therefore, we should continue to encourage to crossing at crosswalks. This is a safety issue
for traffic and, pedestrians. Continue to expand pedestrian safety by installing crosswalks
and sidewalks, and bike lanes by considering this as a recommendation under public safety.
The group that Emily met with said that they really respected the Task Force and
applauded the fact of not making many youth programs that require extra amounts of
resources.
Mr. Latorre mentioned the use of languages and creating a sense of cultural competency
under expanding languages to employers and employees. Ms. Gordan stated the role of the
immigration advance council or welcoming immigrants to Charlotte. The Task Force had to
choose between an advisory council (an appointed board by council) and a partnership
(similar to community cabinet or the business resources partnership is a group). The
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difference between the two include: a council is held to a high attendance standard, and are
politically appointed; a partnership is not held to a political appointment process or have
attendance requirements and do have regular meetings. Also, a partnership has staff
support.
Mr. Latorre asked a question about whether council is the route to go. Ms. Carter responds
that by making a decision to become a council you would want people to be appointed who
actually want to be there. Therefore the safest decision is to go with a partnership. Ms.
Roberts agreed and stated that the attendance policy for a council is strict; many of the
people interested in this travel a lot. There could be a possibility of losing good people
because of the stringent policy. Ms. Gordon also agrees and claimed that it would be easier
to add new partners and change items later on in the recommendations with a partnership
rather than with a council.
Ms. Roberts motioned to adopt a partnership. Kristin seconded the motion.
All voted in favor. The motion carried.
Brought up was Mr. White’s idea of having a group outside of the organizations that could
advise 3 government entities. Ms. Roberts believes that this partnership could do just that.
Ms. Gordon provided insight on how other partnerships work and advised the Task Force
that making changes down the road would be simpler to handle as stated in the bylaws of
partners. Mr. Jorge questioned how differently would this partnership work in comparison
to other international organizations in the community, such as: International House and
Charlotte International Cabinet or if this partnership would overlap. Ms. Roberts sees it as a
prevention of the organizations and partnership overlapping because it would be the
convener to work with existing organizations and avoid overlap.
Ms. Wade captured more information for correct wording, from the Task Force, to ensure
that the partnership call out and include advising counties, CMS, towns, and other
appropriate entities. Funding: holding a meeting by the city to host/ fund those meetings.
The recommendations are lobbying immigration by inviting the participation of
immigrants and the seeing communities. It is important to decide the participating party by
distinguishing that this is separate and not working together.
In regards to youth programs, Ms. Gordon spoke with Director of Youth engagement and
community engagement. They are not allowed to intentionally target any specific group.
Therefore the second sentence specifically targets immigration youth, which is not legally
correct but will leave it in there to show the intent from us and the community. By seeking
to include or simply modifying the wording we can get around specific targets. Changing
the wording to: “seek to broaden multicultural opportunities and curriculum choices for
immigrant youth and participators among immigration youth”
Also, a few last requests were recommended for the section regarding CATS; to include
rails and buses by including the thought of expanding or altering routes “and” services.
Finally, in the “designating a City office” section that mentions Notario fraud; we had a
suggestion to include an explanation of what Notario fraud is (some council members
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won’t necessarily know what that is). Following this brief change were a time for questions
and comments.
3. Welcoming Initiatives/ Receiving Communities
Ms. Zimmern stated that at the previous public forum places of welcome are commonly
misunderstood for their resources and mistaken as primary civic engagement. There will
need to be some major rework based on the public forum feedback. It is pertinent to
target informal civic engagement to get the receiving community to fully understand issues
and benefits of immigration policies for entire companies.
Within the section: enlisting community partners from all sectors, it is recommended to
narrow the focus regarding places of welcome. The 3 pillars: direct public engagement,
leadership development, and strategic communications create the welcoming American
framework for the community, which Charlotte signed on to do. Although places of
welcome are listed as one means, it is not the only means. The shift includes the write-up
on the report but will be under the civic engagement section.
Mr. Furuseth agreed with the 3 points presented by Ms. Zimmern but thinks that the ideas
belong at the front of the recommendations draft. These bulleted points are the
overarching framing goal for the draft itself; i.e. this sets the framework for every other
recommendation listed. We could reward the bold sentence in the very 1st paragraph; not
necessarily listing in order of priority but rather these are priorities from a layer.
Therefore, Ms. Roberts suggested rewording the bold statement. These items were
identified as priorities among a much longer list of actions than what we currently have,
and from Ms. Roberts’ understanding what we have finalized in bold now are all considered
priorities. Ms. Gordon agrees that all recommendations are considered priorities and
suggest moving the bolded section to a different place within the recommendations list.
The other pieces that go along with the bolded header will be lost in the recommendations
if we decide to move it entirely.
Ms. Zimmern stated that everyone believes to lead with economic growth and shared
prosperity. Inclusion can be incorporated into the preamble after public safety the 4th
bullet be pulled out and listed as a recommendation. Also the numbered recommendations
can be changed to underlined and bold headings in order to eliminate the numbers from
misconstruing priority recommendations. Following the underlined and bold headings are
the bullets of details parts of the recommendations. Finally, the decision to pull out state
and national recommendations has carried; and changes involve moving to the front within
the inclusion section of recommendations.
4. State/ National Recommendations
Within the state and national recommendations the draft discusses the 287(g) agreements
between the Mecklenburg County Sherriff’s Office and the U.S. Immigration and Custom
Enforcement (ICE). Ms. Zimmern noted that on Nov. 20 the city council announced phasing
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out with DAPA and claiming that it will be consistent with the state-wide campaign on
instate tuition. Within this recommendation where it states the repealed agreement and
focus on the secured communities, the DAPA and 287(g) need to be distinguished as
separates. 287 (g) contains ICE officers actually in the jails. M.s Williams stated, if the city
wants want to be a welcoming community, you can’t be that with the law 287(g). Specific
communities are being phased out with the DAPA announcement which affects the
realigning of ICE enforcement priorities and only going after high priority crime. Going
forward the Task Force agreed to take out the “such as” to make the recommendation more
inclusive and take out “secured communities”.
Mr. Jorge brought up 2 major points from the listening sessions: Driver’s license (voluntary
community ID) and 287g (Sheriff’s office). “There is no control over the federal or state
issues but with that being said, this is really a local issue within our community,” stated Mr.
Jorge. This is Mecklenburg, Charlotte’s issue not a state issue. By having this
recommendation in the middle of the draft blatantly diminishes the importance of the 2
programs, i.e. burying the lead. Mr. Jorge suggested separating the bullet regarding 287(g)
out as a separate bullet point to emphasize its importance among communities. The conflict
surrounding the programs: DAPA and 287(g) programs include increased profiling of
Latinos and immigrants. Therefore it would be effective to include a bullet point for
empirical evidence based off of the communities concerns mentioned in the previous public
forum.
By changing the wording of the recommendation to demonstrate the support of
responsibilities from the county and city responsibilities there is a possibility of building a
supplementary program after repealing 287(g). It is difficult for the local government to
have 287(g) and have the trust from immigrants. Therefore the wording of this
recommendation will reflect the community being heard and inherently repealing it makes
the community safer.
Along with DACA, information on these changes are important to ensure preventing fraud,
the system is set up to check your prints, terrorists, and active felons. Ms. Gordon
suggested final wording for the recommendation regarding 287(g) to say: “Encourage
CMPD and the sheriff office to collaborate in a way to create trust with the community,
encouraging residents to report crimes starting with the repeals of 287(g) programs and
the ICE.” Also, for any recommendations regarding 287(g) it will fall under public safety.
Ms. Lyall-Knusel mentioned that at every listening/ feedback session citizens’ concerns
involved adult education and parents have the knowledge to navigate the school system.
Ms. Gordon implied that part of the cities citizenship program English classes are necessary
but are not spelled out in the recommendations. Program availability depends on C4C and
whether or not the city is considered leading or participating. They have the right to
include citizenship programs such as English and citizenship classes, but are unsure if
$100,000 every year is in the city budget but would like to support the efforts.
The goal for these recommendations regarding education on the local level is to
demonstrate support efforts of Mecklenburg County and for CMS to bring classes to the
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community. For instance, Ms. Lyall-Knusel introduced advocacy for immigrants learning
English and job skills to acquire jobs. Ms. Zimmern responded that health and education
could be brought under the county recommendations. Although these are mentioned in the
appendices healthcare, education and jobs could also be added within the
recommendations draft. Ms. Gordon suggested that all others go in the report under the
state/ national section. An example would be the expansion of education; the reality of the
situation is the money supporting education is coming from the state as funding. These are
the recommendations for the city; meaning they have to work with the city first in order to
get approved.
Ms. Lyall-Knusel recommends that “adult education programs” should be moved to
inclusion, bullet 2. Also, within the closing paragraph regarding Medicaid expansion,
change the wording to “affirm” as a state action in the last bullet. This will include Medicaid
expansion; instate tuition campaign, approving more Visa’s and driver’s licenses of colleges
and universities, ESL, expanding access to education and inclusive policy reform.
Mr. Furuseth motioned to make recommendation changes regarding inclusion. Mr. Jorge
seconded the motion. All voted in favor. The motion carried.
Ms. Gordon brought to the Task Forces’ attention that since CMS, counties and national
have been brought into the recommendation, should there be separate bullets or any other
changes. Ms. Zimmern agreed with other members to still include the full report. Mr.
Furuseth will be working on the full preamble along with assisting Ms. Gordon in preparing
the final draft to take to city council.
The way it works is Ms. Gordon will find out the date that a copy of the recommendations
will be needed at the City Manager’s Office. Everyone will be notified at least 3 days before
in order to get approved. By approving the email, means that the Task Force has accepted
the draft and no other changes can be made. Ms. Gordon wants to make sure that the Task
Force has put in everything with appropriate wording correctly for each working group.
Process of methodology was asked for by the City Manager’s Office and that will explain
how we set up our meetings, the story of how the listening sessions and Task Force
meetings were done in order to compare in 10 years in order to be replicated again. The
links to all presentations will be in the email, along with the minutes for the Task Force to
view.
Ms. Zimmern provided insight on Charlotte; we are the first cities with a council manager’s
system. A lot of cities are ahead of us but they are strong mayor cities; therefore other cities
will look to Charlotte for advice on council manager’s system. Charlotte is a new immigrant
gateway; we are a city enjoying tremendous population growth and robust economy.
It is pertinent that everyone is present at the city council meeting Feb. 23, 2015 at 5:00PM
room 267. There will be dinner, a presentation and is open to the public.
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5. Report Format and Review Next Steps:
With the meeting with the city and city manager’s office; heads up, prepare for what
council might ask. There will be a preview economic development GC committee meeting
Feb. 5, 2015.
February 24, 2015 will be the last Task Force meeting, at the usual place during the usual
time. At this meeting there will be a decision made on dates for quarterly meetings. Take
not that the Task Force stands only for one more year.
The council will pass recommendations to committees in order to discuss the “how” and
“how much” that Ms. Zimmern mentioned earlier in the meeting. Also the City staff will
certainly bring back questions to the Task Force throughout the year as well.
February 23, 2015 will be the public forum night at 6:30PM. At the public forum it would
be nice to have guest speakers, partners and community members sign up. The link should
be in the email that included the minutes.
Meeting adjourned at 4:58PM.
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Appendix A:
Charlotte Immigrant Integration Task Force Recommendations
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Notes:
Meeting began at 3:10pm
Lots of meetings  who met with
Notary – one familiar
County and community
Others watching
Not strong mayor
Why add these? If we don’t have a lot of time
Rehash why and methods
Is there one point to latch onto?
Like New Americans Office
Have Leaders of different communities
Lacy do not coalesce around item
Process important
What can we do as our own orgs to make things happen?
Steven: not one topic
Here are what we found – do with it what you want
Guatam: a year where votes matter
Point it out
Remind council that you can’t treat this as just one move
Task Force
This is a change in our community
Omar: yet many are not voters and don’t have a voice
Id and 287g don’t’ effect
Can’t just focus on letters, those who can’t vote need a voice
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