Cecilia Muñoz
Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

León Rodríguez
Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

February 9th, 2015

Greetings,

I'm writing on behalf of the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) in response to your blog post, "Call for Ideas: Help Shape a Federal Immigrant and Refugee Integration Strategy."

NCL is a coalition of leading national and regional organizations dedicated to advancing adult education, family literacy, and English language acquisition in the United States. NCL itself has not drafted a new set of recommendations in response to your request; however, we strongly urged NCL members with a particular focus on immigrant integration to submit their comments to you, and I hope many of them did so.

I would, however, like to submit for consideration a set of policy principles approved by NCL members in the spring of 2013 regarding immigration reform (they are attached to this message). NCL stands by these principles, and while they were written in the context of the proposed comprehensive immigration reform legislation that was introduced in the Senate in 2013, I think these principles are still relevant and potentially helpful to the White House Task Force on New Americans as they begin their work.

Further, I urge the Task Force on New Americans to engage the adult education community as they move forward. Adult education programs around the country are often at the front lines of community immigrant integration efforts, and collectively, our field has a breadth of experience in assisting immigrant English Language learners gain the education and English language skills necessary for employment and economic self-sufficiency, and to be active and productive members of the communities in which they live.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of further assistance.

Jeff Carter
President, National Coalition for Literacy (2014-2015)
http://national-coalition-literacy.org

jcarter@literacypolicy.org or jeffcrtr@gmail.org
Personal Twitter: @jeffcrtr | literacypolicy.org

(202) 374-4387

1. We’ve successfully completed and submitted our article on AEFLA funding
   for the CEF FY 2016 Budget book. Thanks to those of you who offered
   suggestions or responded to questions. Special thanks in particular to
   Regina Suitt for offering some great vignettes on the impact of AEFLA
   funding on families in the Tucson area. Also, as luck would have it, the
   section editor for our part of the book is a representative of another NCL
   member, Kevin Maher of ALA. Kevin did an excellent job leading this effort
   on his first go at doing it.

Writing/editing this article for next year will be on the list of
volunteer projects which I’ll be posting online soon. I am happy to retire
from leading this task.

I think I get one last review before the copy is deemed final. At that
point I will send the list a copy of the final article.

2. I did not hear from any volunteers interested in pulling together an
   NCL response to the White House Task Force on New Americans' call for ideas
   on federal immigration and refugee integration strategy, which was due
   yesterday. (See my e-mail from January 23rd.)

However, at the last minute, I did make a hasty executive decision and
sent them a copy of NCL's immigration reform principles from 2013. I
explained that although they were written in a different context, I thought
all of the principles were potentially of interest and relevant to the Task
Force. I did not seek the Board or the members’ permission to do this -- as
far as I know we still stand behind those principles and didn’t think there
would be an objection.  My message and the principles are attached to the
bottom of tis message.

If your organization submitted comments, I encourage you to share them
with your colleagues on this list. If you have posted them, let me know
and we’ll link to it.

3. So far, no volunteers have come forward for the policy chair position.
   Please let me know ASAP if you are interested. Remember, tasks and time
   commitment is negotiable.

Jeff

--
Jeff Carter

Director, Adult Education Initiatives
Digital Promise | jeff@digitalpromise.org
http://www.digitalpromise.org/initiatives/adult-learning

President, National Coalition for Literacy (2014-2015)

jcarter@literacypolicy.org or jeffcrtr@gmail.org
Personal Twitter: @jeffcrtr | literacypolicy.org

(202) 374-4387

Cecilia Muñoz
Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

León Rodríguez
Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

February 9th, 2015

Greetings,

I'm writing on behalf of the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) in
response to your blog post, "Call for Ideas: Help Shape a Federal Immigrant
and Refugee Integration Strategy."

NCL is a coalition of leading national and regional organizations
dedicated to advancing adult education, family literacy, and English
language acquisition in the United States. NCL itself has not drafted a new
set of recommendations in response to your request; however, we strongly
urged NCL members with a particular focus on immigrant integration to
submit their comments to you, and I hope many of them did so.

I would, however, like to submit for consideration a set of policy
principles approved by NCL members in the spring of 2013 regarding
immigration reform (they are attached to this message). NCL stands by these
principles, and while they were written in the context of the proposed
comprehensive immigration reform legislation that was introduced in the
Senate in 2013, I think these principles are still relevant and potentially
helpful to the White House Task Force on New Americans as they begin their
work.

Further, I urge the Task Force on New Americans to engage the adult
education community as they move forward. Adult education programs around
the country are often at the front lines of community immigrant integration
efforts, and collectively, our field has a breadth of experience in
assisting immigrant English Language learners gain the education and
English language skills necessary for employment and economic
self-sufficiency, and to be active and productive members of the
communities in which they live.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of further assistance.

Jeff Carter
President, National Coalition for Literacy (2014-2015)
http://national-coalition-literacy.org

jcarter@literacypolicy.org or jeffcrtr@gmail.org
Personal Twitter: @jeffcrtr | literacypolicy.org

(202) 374-4387

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