CLEVELAND — Agustín Torres spends most days going through thousands of pages of asylum cases as the director of asylum operations and client relations at Sus Abogados Latinos in Painesville.
“I work with immigrants and most of them, like 90%, don't speak the language. And, I kind of relate [to] their frustration because I was one of them. I am one of them,” said Torres who was born in Veracruz, Mexico.
Torres said he took a chance on school, and at age 40, obtained his GED. In the years after, he got an associate’s degree at Cuyahoga Community College and a bachelor’s degree at Case Western Reserve University. Through it all, Torres said, language was a huge barrier.
“I struggled a lot,” he said. “I was in the writing center every single day.”
But now, English language services could be stripped away from millions of non-native speakers. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating English as the country’s official language, which rescinds a Clinton-era policy that required federal agencies to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.
The executive order does not prohibit government agencies from offering resourcing in other languages; instead, it’s up to each federal entities’ discretion to decide when and how to “best serve the American people.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of multilingual speakers in the U.S. has tripled since 1980, with now roughly one in five Americans speaking a language other than English.
“More than 12% of Cuyahoga County speaks languages other than English, including myself. I speak Ukrainian at home,” said Zachary Nelson, who is the program director at Global Cleveland.
Born in Cleveland, Nelson lived in Ukraine for four years after studying for two years in Russia.
Now, he helps newcomers get language assistance and finds jobs, after learning a new language himself while working abroad.
“There was investment in multilingualism, and what can I say about multilingualism is that it’s beneficial,” Nelson said. “It not only increases your chances for getting work because the world is quite global, business is quite global. It also offers you a different perspective on cultures and people.”
Torres said learning English is an important milestone for many immigrants and hopes the government will continue to lend a helping hand.
“I do understand, you know, we are here, we need to learn the language,” Torres said. “But I think to impose something like that so strongly, I think instead of helping its doing the opposite.”
