How Raleigh is taking steps to hear more Hispanic and immigrant voices
When Mary-Ann Baldwin was campaigning for Raleigh mayor, Hispanic community members told her they often feel invisible when it comes to politics.
The host of a Spanish-language radio station told Baldwin she was the first candidate to come talk to them, she said. Later at a campaign event, a man asked her what she could do for the Hispanic community.
“I told him, ‘We need you to tell us what you need,’” Baldwin recalled. “Because I don’t know the issues they’re facing well enough.”
Now, Raleigh’s Latino and immigrant residents will have a way to voice their concerns to the City Council, with a new Hispanic and Immigrant Affairs Committee.
Baldwin’s message behind it: “Let us hear from you.”
Committee members, terms
Raleigh has about 50,000 Hispanic or Latino residents, or more than 10% of the population. According to Data USA, around 14,000 of those residents live below the poverty line.
Wake County has the third-highest percentage of foreign-born residents in North Carolina at 13%, with more than one-third of those residents from Latin America.
The committee, approved Jan. 21, will advise the City Council on social, economic and vocational barriers that affect immigrant communities, as well as help develop policies that concern those communities.
It will have 13 to 15 members who may serve up to two, two-year terms.
While Baldwin said she’d like some members to have experience in legal and immigration affairs, Iliana Santillan, People Power director at Poder NC Action, said she’d like the committee to better reflect the community.
“A lot of times these boards have people who already have power in the community, but I hope we see young people, people who use DACA, people who might not be documented and members of the Latinx LGBTQ community,” she said.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, was enacted in 2012 by President Barack Obama to protect young people who entered the U.S. illegally as children from deportation. It doesn’t provide a pathway to citizenship, but it provides access to a driver’s license.
President Donald Trump rescinded DACA protections in 2017, but a California federal court ruled the government must “maintain the DACA program on a nationwide basis.” The Supreme Court is expected to rule later this year on the legality of the Trump administration’s ending the program.
Around 7% of Raleigh’s population is undocumented, or here without legal status, which is close to the national average, according to Data USA.
Last July, Latino community leaders gathered outside U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis’ office, encouraging him to support the Dream & Promise Act of 2019, which would allow DACA recipients, Temporary-Protected Status recipients and others to stay in the country if they meet certain criteria. It passed in the U.S. House in June and has been on the Senate calendar since.
“There’s a large group of Latinx folks in Raleigh, and I hope that we can see a sense of safety out of these conversations,” Santillan said.
Different challenges, needs
Raleigh City Council member Saige Martin will serve as the liaison to the committee. Martin, whose father is from Puerto Rico, was elected to the District D seat in 2019 as the city’s first Latino council member.
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He said he thinks one, united committee of different immigrant communities will work if it recognizes the different issues facing each group.
“All immigrants are facing different challenges and needs, and we have have to be willing to respond to that,” Martin said.
Most of the committee’s seats will be chosen through an application, but the council will nominate members for five of the seats.
Baldwin asked for a simple application to be made over the next couple of weeks, and then a 30-day period to see how many people apply. In the meantime, interested residents can email their resumes to her at mary-ann.baldwin@raleighnc.gov.
The city plans to develop a language access plan for the committee, to help those who don’t speak English well. This could include translating documents into Spanish and making accommodations at meetings so everyone can participate.
Baldwin said she hopes it inspires more people to run for office.
Pepe Caudillo, director of the Brentwood Boys and Girls Club, said although the committee can’t directly affect policy outside the city level, “at least our government is trying to be more sensitive to the Latino community.”
“I hope it helps people get a sense of what it is to be an immigrant,” he said.
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 4:25 PM with the headline "How Raleigh is taking steps to hear more Hispanic and immigrant voices."
