The Illegal Immigrants Who Are NOT Being Deported

[Losonti Tokash]

The plan's pretty simple. Cease offering multi-lingual services. Have a nice day.

For no other reason than it annoys you. Cool.

You didn't ask about the reasoning at all, jackass. Don't fail to ask your question, then come of all snarky and sarcastic when the question you failed to ask doesn't get answered.

Stupid asshole, learn to frame and type out an actual question if you have one to ask.

What little reasoning you offered boiled down to "it costs money," which is fucking stupid. Your "solution" is to just deflect the costs from being shared among millions of people, to each and every person who needs any translation services when dealing with the government. Not only will those private translators cost more for the same amount of time, but you are concentrating all the expenses on people that likely can't afford it in the first place. Good job!

Edit: Plus the stupid garbage about it costing extra money to print documentation in two languages. Not only is that a one time expense, but it saves money since the person filling out the paperwork can actually read it instead of needing a person to translate for them.

[Solauren]

Well, if Ontario Government prices are anything to go on..
(I'm qouting from memory here. There is no way in hell I could dig up, or post, the offical prices lists)

Intial Cost of creation of a legal document - About $20 bucks (Both english and french)
Cost of translation into non-offical language - +$5 bucks per language. (+$10 or more if it's a language that's not encountered alot. More European languages, Mandorian and Japanese would be $5, but an obscure language would be more).

Cost of printing document - Approximately $0.05 per page. (Single or double sided).

The cost of creating those documents is not expensive. Just keep them on a common server, and print them as needed.

[RedImperator]

Yeah, last I checked, government forms aren't hand-copied by monks. You translate it once and then you print however many you think you'll need. The cost argument against multi-lingual forms is idiotic, and that's before you try to figure out the costs associated with millions of resident aliens being unable to fill out their tax forms or get a driver's license unless they can afford a private translator. Not to mention the opportunities for abuse--"Oh don't worry, Juan, I'll fill out your forms for you".

If you're in favor of a "must be fluent in English" requirement to enter this country as anything other than a tourist, just come out and say it. Coughing up a plan that will do nothing besides make life harder on immigrants and then justifying it with non-existent "savings" is asinine.

[Kanastrous]

Every time forms change - more $$$ to re-translate, re-print, re-distribute, destroy the old forms. Seeing how frequently the game was changed on my wife during her application process, that looks like some large stacks of paper.

I'm not really for a 'must be fluent' to live here requirement, which I think is intrusive and unreasonable. I'm for the government conducting its business solely in English; if that impels people to acquire English in addition to their first language, that's all to the good. But periodic contacts with government can be handled with the assistance of a translator, who doesn't necessarily have to be a paid professional. They can be a relative, or any member of the same linguistic community willing to help out.

It's true that the $$$ involved is not a big proportion of budget - in fact, I expect it's a very, very small proportion - but it's still real dollars in quantities that I suspect no one here earns, per year, and every one of those dollars could be better applied elsewhere (as I expect everyone here feels about whatever programs *they* believe are wasteful; it's not about the number of individual dollars so much as their waste).

I guess I'm handicapped by having had the experience of living and working where government was not constituted and placed in translation for my own convenience. Having survived dealing with forms in another language I have this difficult-to-ditch conviction that others are capable of handling that, too.

[General Zod]

Every time forms change - more $$$ to re-translate, re-print, re-distribute, destroy the old forms. Seeing how frequently the game was changed on my wife during her application process, that looks like some large stacks of paper.

I'm not really for a 'must be fluent' to live here requirement, which I think is intrusive and unreasonable. I'm for the government conducting its business solely in English; if that impels people to acquire English in addition to their first language, that's all to the good. But periodic contacts with government can be handled with the assistance of a translator, who doesn't necessarily have to be a paid professional. They can be a relative, or any member of the same linguistic community willing to help out.

It's true that the $$$ involved is not a big proportion of budget - in fact, I expect it's a very, very small proportion - but it's still real dollars in quantities that I suspect no one here earns, per year, and every one of those dollars could be better applied elsewhere (as I expect everyone here feels about whatever programs *they* believe are wasteful; it's not about the number of individual dollars so much as their waste).

I guess I'm handicapped by having had the experience of living and working where government was not constituted and placed in translation for my own convenience. Having survived dealing with forms in another language I have this difficult-to-ditch conviction that others are capable of handling that, too.

The idea that making something convenient is a "waste" is extremely bizarre reasoning, especially if significant numbers of people will use it. It might not be an "essential" service, but calling it wasteful seems odd. It's not as if we're so strapped for cash as a country that we have to cut a very low cost program when we can cut other useless items instead, like a significant amount of military spending.

[Losonti Tokash]

Just because other countries do it in some bass ackwards way isn't a reason for us to emulate them. Even Mexico has bilingual documentation and signage in places where Americans tend to show up. You know why? Because it saves everyone involved a lot of time, money, and stress if the person the paperwork is for can actually read the goddamn paperwork.

[Kanastrous]

Funny you mention that; the first place I worked abroad and was presented with stacks of poorly-smudgily-copied government paperwork strictly in the local language was...Mexico. Somehow I got through it, though. And it would have impressed me as ludicrous had someone suggested I walk up to the window and demand Mexican government paperwork in English, for my convenience...

Sure, dealing with paperwork in an unfamiliar language requires some additional effort. I'm comfortable with allowing people to make that effort. And providing the translated paper at taxpayer expense does *not* save "everyone involved" money, Losonti: it doesn't save the taxpayer money, does it? The only savings you seem to be interested in are savings that benefit the applicant. Well, I prefer to focus on savings that benefit the country to which the application is being made.

And there's nothing bass ackwards, about it: you wish to become a resident or citizen, so you handle the obligations involved, one reasonable one being that your dealings with the government under which you wish to move in, are in a uniform language in which said government does all of their business. Unlike you - I suspect, anyway - I have actually done what I'm talking about.

[Gil Hamilton]

Every time forms change - more $$$ to re-translate, re-print, re-distribute, destroy the old forms. Seeing how frequently the game was changed on my wife during her application process, that looks like some large stacks of paper.

You have the exact same cost for MOST of those things whether or not they are in English or in another language. It doesn't cost any more to print something in Spanish as it does in English, or shred those forms when they become antiquated. The only thing there might be additional costs on is translation, but if it is the same form, MOST of the things on it will be identical. I think you are overstating the problem here singificantly, Kanastrous.

Besides, the language that is by far the most common that may need some translation is Spanish, and TONS of people speak that, even in areas that don't have enormous latino populations. And further, I think alot of these forms are printed on site and downloadable anyway. It's not like they have to print "x number" of Bantu language DMV forms and distribute them "just in case"; the lady at the counter can just fetch the PDF from a government website and print it there. Every single form I've needed from the government I've gotten from the internet.

The "cost" argument has always been weak and one that people in the past have tried to float because they don't want to say that they want to make an nationalist argument. I'm not saying you personally are doing that, but that's what it comes across as.

[Serafina]

If i am not completely mistaken (since i never needed it), Germany also provides paperwork in other languages when required, and if vocal translation is required it is also paid for by the state.
That's simply because if you do not do that, your chances of actually integrating such people into your society is next-to-zero. E.g., how are you planning on providing a language course if you can not communicate with them? Or provide any other necessary services, for that matter.

Even if you can, it is much more complicated, which is utterly unnecessary.

[General Zod]

Funny you mention that; the first place I worked abroad and was presented with stacks of poorly-smudgily-copied government paperwork strictly in the local language was...Mexico. Somehow I got through it, though. And it would have impressed me as ludicrous had someone suggested I walk up to the window and demand Mexican government paperwork in English, for my convenience...

Sure, dealing with paperwork in an unfamiliar language requires some additional effort. I'm comfortable with allowing people to make that effort. And providing the translated paper at taxpayer expense does *not* save "everyone involved" money, Losonti: it doesn't save the taxpayer money, does it? The only savings you seem to be interested in are savings that benefit the applicant. Well, I prefer to focus on savings that benefit the country to which the application is being made.

And there's nothing bass ackwards, about it: you wish to become a resident or citizen, so you handle the obligations involved, one reasonable one being that your dealings with the government under which you wish to move in, are in a uniform language in which said government does all of their business. Unlike you - I suspect, anyway - I have actually done what I'm talking about.

Do you have any justification for slashing the program that doesn't amount to "lol rugged individualism."? Frankly I don't see why the documents couldn't simply be printed out on demand if you're going to keep whining about the relatively trivial cost.

[Kanastrous]

I think you are overstating the problem here singificantly, Kanastrous.

It's possible. Since I don't have figures to point to I'm stuck arguing that any $$$ put toward it is a waste, rather than point to specific dollar amounts.

The "cost" argument has always been weak and one that people in the past have tried to float because they don't want to say that they want to make an nationalist argument. I'm not saying you personally are doing that, but that's what it comes across as.

I think there's value to a poly-lingual nation having a mono-lingual government as a unifying factor - we all speak what we like at home, on the street, at work, etc but have a single accepted language for common business as citizens. But I have less numbers of any kind for that, than for the paper-wastage angle, so I wasn't going to bring it up...

[General Zod]

It's possible. Since I don't have figures to point to I'm stuck arguing that any $$$ put toward it is a waste, rather than point to specific dollar amounts.

Would be nice if you actually provided a definition of what you consider "waste."

[eion]

Kanastrous, you make it sound as if a brigade of translators is employed at every state government, fervently translating the 2-11B Income Tax Declaration into Latin, Dalmatian, Oscan, Merya, Klingon, and 5,000 other languages, including Solresol and Esperanto.

Then a couple forests are razed and a Corps of printers print 250,000 copies of each translated form, and then destroy the originals and shoot the translators.

Then on the now barren woodland a maze of warehouses are built to house the copies.

And should a native Spanish speaker whose family has lived here and spoken Spanish here since before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and who REFUSES to learn the Queen's Republicans' English out of utter contempt for AMERICA wishes to pay his taxes he requests a copy of the form in his mother-tongue.

A fleet of small airplanes fly the forms to the local government office individually, escorted by an armed courier.

Then the form is flown back to the home office, where a different team of translators translate the form back into English so the Revenue Department can understand it.

Cite some real costs, or fuck off. Be sure to balance those costs of document translation and on-demand printing against any need for keeping interpreters on staff, the increase in tax evasion and other civil crimes because people don't know how to fill out the forms, the damage to civil rights of natural-born citizens who have never learned English because all their family and friends speak Spanish and all the places they go speak Spanish.

Some of these families of natural born citizens (they were born here, their parents were born here, etc.) have been Americans longer than my family has, and have been speaking Spanish longer than my family has been speaking English, and I’ll wager longer than yours has too. They can speak whatever language they want, they’ve certainly earned the privilege.

[Kanastrous]

Would be nice if you actually provided a definition of what you consider "waste."

In this case I'd define it as taxpayers covering an application-related service whose cost should be borne by the applicant, as part of a government that operates in one language. From an individual taxpayer perspective, it means why should I cover the costs of accommodating someone else's language when the remainder of their application expenses are their responsibility? Why shouldn't I also be responsible for hiring their attorney and/or adviser? Maybe taxpayers should subsidize English-language education too? (actually...maybe we should; I'd prefer that to subsidizing foreign-language paperwork...and probably to some degree somewhere we already do...)

Seems to me that the cost of extra paperwork in, say one language could be as high as 200% of having it in only a single official language. First you cover the costs of translation, whatever they may be. Then each piece of app paperwork in English now has an other-language duplicate: twice as much ink to buy, twice as much paper to buy, twice as much printer time to pay for, twice as much storage space, twice as much transit cost, twice as much work for the people in each office handling said paperwork...

...but that's assuming a one to one correspondence, which may not be realistic. So let's say you're adding an extra, say, 25% (let's imagine that one-quarter of the forms are duplicated in the second language). It still adds up...particularly when you consider not one but multiple foreign language translations.

[General Zod]

In this case I'd define it as taxpayers covering an application-related service whose cost should be borne by the applicant

I suppose the city shouldn't subsidize public transportation either? People can get by with getting their own cars. How about single payer healthcare? Frankly this is a laughable definition and makes your entire argument sound like sour grapes.

[Kanastrous]

I don't see how you got from immigration forms to public transportation. Unless the principle is that if a government is paying for anything, it should be paying for everything...

eion, I didn't consider the potential costs of not-providing in terms of more criminality, etcetera. Philosophically my response would be not interested in excuses; if you find obeying the law in English inconvenient, you will find incarceration in English to be more of the same...

...but realistically if better cost-containment obtains with polylingual forms etc, then I guess that would be one of those hold your nose and do what's best for the bottom line-type things.

[General Zod]

I don't see how you got from immigration forms to public transportation. Unless the principle is that if a government is paying for anything, it should be paying for everything...

I'm simply applying your definition of "waste" to other areas of government spending. Frankly I can't understand your bizarre need to have different definitions of "waste" depending on what it's being spent on.

[Edi]

The cost argument about how it's expensive to provide forms in two or three languages is really fucking dumb. Once it's done, it can be copied as many times as necessary. The forms don't change that often, and usually any changes are slight, meaning that you only need to retranslate small portions (the changes) while everything else stays the same.

Don't know about how it's done in the US, but in Finland any government offices that require certain forms usually have some stacks on hand if you need to fill them out, but just as often the forms are filled on the computer and the filled form printed out. Or forms can be printed out as needed. Laser printers these days are inexpensive and so is printer ink compared to having warehouses full of ready-printed forms just wasting space.

Finland provides all forms in two languages automatically (Finnish and Swedish) and everything is also available in English. There are also translation services for more than two dozen different languages in case people cannot use any of the more readily available ones.

The US government feels it can afford to throw 10 billion a month into foreign wars, hundreds of billions more into Top Secret America and military spending, but it can't afford to translate a few fucking forms into two or three languages?

That's bullshit. All this whining about English only is nothing more than "keep them dirty non-English speaking immigrants out" wrapped in a bad costume and worse makeup.

[Gil Hamilton]

It's possible. Since I don't have figures to point to I'm stuck arguing that any $$$ put toward it is a waste, rather than point to specific dollar amounts.

It seems to me that it's only a "waste" if you don't consider it a worthy goal to help those people. Any slight additional cost of having Spanish or whatever forms goes to making it simpler for people who wish to pay their taxes or whatever to do so. I can't imagine why that is an issue. You haven't even stated what the cost of this is; you've just pressed that it must be some form of onerous burden.

I think there's value to a poly-lingual nation having a mono-lingual government as a unifying factor - we all speak what we like at home, on the street, at work, etc but have a single accepted language for common business as citizens. But I have less numbers of any kind for that, than for the paper-wastage angle, so I wasn't going to bring it up...

How can you have less numbers than zero, given you haven't posted any numbers for the paper-wastage angle to begin with? Besides, the government basically IS monolingual as it is. Virtually all government business and documents are already in English. I'm struggling here to see your end of it, but I'm not seeing the tangible benefit in making the US government officially monolingual and deliberately getting rid of any non-English forms published by the government for use by non-English speakers.

[Aaron]

The cost argument about how it's expensive to provide forms in two or three languages is really fucking dumb. Once it's done, it can be copied as many times as necessary. The forms don't change that often, and usually any changes are slight, meaning that you only need to retranslate small portions (the changes) while everything else stays the same.

Don't know about how it's done in the US, but in Finland any government offices that require certain forms usually have some stacks on hand if you need to fill them out, but just as often the forms are filled on the computer and the filled form printed out. Or forms can be printed out as needed. Laser printers these days are inexpensive and so is printer ink compared to having warehouses full of ready-printed forms just wasting space.

Finland provides all forms in two languages automatically (Finnish and Swedish) and everything is also available in English. There are also translation services for more than two dozen different languages in case people cannot use any of the more readily available ones.

The US government feels it can afford to throw 10 billion a month into foreign wars, hundreds of billions more into Top Secret America and military spending, but it can't afford to translate a few fucking forms into two or three languages?

That's bullshit. All this whining about English only is nothing more than "keep them dirty non-English speaking immigrants out" wrapped in a bad costume and worse makeup.

Whats funny is that Canada basically has subsidized printing companies, companies that get almost all their business from printing forms for them. And even with the official English and French requirements, we manage to have forms, sign-age and various bric-a-brac in a half dozen others depending on location.

Seriously, walk into a GVRD DMV and be in awe of how many different languages services are offered in. Turns out that a decent government adapts to the needs of it's populace, rather then imposing pointless horseshit.

[Broomstick]

I don't substantively disagree with you, but if you're going to throw examples of small, statistically insignificant ethnic groups around to show just how diverse linguistically the US is, can you actually throw in some citation? Like, Finnish speakers in Minnesota?

I thought it was obvious from when I said "I'm also told..." I wasn't making a firm cite but relying on hearsay. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I am not conversant with ALL subgroups in the US, I don't anyone is.

At least in your earlier post you didn't repeat the urban legend of "German as colonial America's official language" bullshit, which I thought you were going to do by mentioning German.

Well, maybe you should read what I'm writing rather than make assumptions before you even finish reading what I wrote.

The message is hardly you're unwelcome.

The message is welcome to the USA, where government paperwork is in English, and you're free to speak and write as you please, absolutely everywhere else.

Except many of the "English only" laws proposed on the Federal level in the past went beyond just "government papers" to everywhere in public life. We need translation services for emergency services like 911 or hospital emergency rooms because in a crisis people tend to fall back to their first language, and the injured/delirious/etc often aren't that coherent even in their native tongue. Social services need to be able to converse in other languages in order to help people.

As it stands, there ARE states in the US that are officially "English only" for government purposes, 28 of them at last count, or slightly more than half. And for those states that might be entirely appropriate, but none of them forbid publishing information, even government information, in other languages when appropriate, or prevent other entities from offering things in other languages. That's the distinction I'm trying to draw here, between saying "here we conduct our official government business in English, but you may do as you wish" versus "no public business in any language other than English, no exceptions".

As some states not only are officially bilingual but have been for centuries, in many cases pre-dating the existence of the US, it does not make sense to impose "English only" across the entire nation unless you can show that the harm done by doing business in more than one language outweighs the benefits. And no, you can't just add up the costs of printing everything twice because there's more to life and even politics than just money.

Although even that much message probably wouldn't be perceived; in my experience working outside the USA it's not usual for governments to issue papers in multiple languages; if you're on their turf you either learn their language, learn it well enough to get by, or engage someone who does, to help you out with paperwork. Since that experience hasn't been in every last nation on earth I don't know what proportion of nations *do* issue multi-lingual paperwork but I suspect it's a small minority.

And yet, the European Union goes to great effort and expense to provide materials in ALL languages officially recognized by its members, which is no trivial matter. If I understand things correctly, that means printing materials in languages like Irish Gaelic, spoken by maybe 170,000 world wide and virtually all of them fluent in English as well. That's in addition to printing everything in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch... In many ways the US as a whole is more equivalent to Europe as a whole than to individual countries within Europe. At a certain level you have to deal with the fact that not everyone in the world speaks the same language.

You didn't ask about the reasoning at all, jackass. Don't fail to ask your question, then come of all snarky and sarcastic when the question you failed to ask doesn't get answered.

Stupid asshole, learn to frame and type out an actual question if you have one to ask.

What little reasoning you offered boiled down to "it costs money," which is fucking stupid. Your "solution" is to just deflect the costs from being shared among millions of people, to each and every person who needs any translation services when dealing with the government. Not only will those private translators cost more for the same amount of time, but you are concentrating all the expenses on people that likely can't afford it in the first place. Good job!

Edit: Plus the stupid garbage about it costing extra money to print documentation in two languages. Not only is that a one time expense, but it saves money since the person filling out the paperwork can actually read it instead of needing a person to translate for them.

I used to procure translation services as part of my job, some years ago. Back in the 1990's translation services started at $40/hour and went up. If you needed specialty services, such as for legal or medical matters, it started around $80/hour, and in case spiked to $120/hour if you needed someone proficient in legal AND medical terminology. That's per hour. This is why hospitals try to hire polylingual staff, and seek volunteer translators, the cost is pretty damn impressive. I'm sure it's gone up in the intervening 10-15 years as well.

So.. which is cheaper? Providing a live translator on every occasion when such a thing is needed, or translating a document once and then printing multiple copies? You're penny wise and pound STUPID, Kanastrous.

Every time forms change - more $$$ to re-translate, re-print, re-distribute, destroy the old forms. Seeing how frequently the game was changed on my wife during her application process, that looks like some large stacks of paper.

Oh, good lord - every time forms are changed they have to be reprinted, redistributed, and old forms destroyed in English. The additional cost of printing a limited number of non-English forms is the only thing added, and I know of no government agency that prints non-English forms in anywhere near the same numbers as English forms.

I'm not really for a 'must be fluent' to live here requirement, which I think is intrusive and unreasonable. I'm for the government conducting its business solely in English; if that impels people to acquire English in addition to their first language, that's all to the good. But periodic contacts with government can be handled with the assistance of a translator, who doesn't necessarily have to be a paid professional. They can be a relative, or any member of the same linguistic community willing to help out.

Holy fuck - are you serious? Yes, many occasions can be handled by some random speaker of the language in question, but what if someone has a serious medical problem? Mistranslation could be fatal. People who speak English as their first language and do so fluently still hire lawyers - that is, professionals - to deal with legal matters, but you want immigrants to have to relay on Cousin Juan or Cousin Olaf, who may have no legal education, for legal matters? What if it's an elderly person being abused by her own family who may need the assistance of the police, you want her to rely on her abusers for translation? These situations do come up. Even where it is not legally required, even where states are officially English language, these services are provided because it just makes sense.

When I go to the local public aid office there is a chart on the way in about 30 different languages, including some pretty obscure ones for North America (Hmong, two different Creoles I could identify, some sort of Ethiopian script, a bunch I couldn't identify), which all say, in their own way "If this is your language point here and someone will come and translate for you". (This presupposes the person in question has some literacy, which some asylum seekers don't, but I'll take a wild guess and assume quite a few otherwise illiterate people can at least identify their language's writing system, even if they can't read it). Why? Because it's preferable to letting people starve or be abused or otherwise leave them hanging. That applies whether they're here as naturalized citizens, legal residents, or, oh heavens, even here illegally because, you know, it's illegal for people to abuse illegal immigrants (as just one example). Hospitals and police have similar sorts of things. Because, unless you're being a dickhead, they're necessary in this world.

Or government agencies like the Census. The Census tries to count everybody, even those who don't speak English, because their mandate doesn't say "ignore those who don't speak English" it says count EVERYBODY. So it needs translation services as well. Now, as it happens the Census makes an effort to recruit polyglots, and tells the rest of us to route people to those folks, but there's no way the Census could operate without being able to have in-house translation.

I'll be generous and assume you're NOT bitching about the cost of sign language services for the deaf, or braille/recording services for the blind in regards to government business, even if sign language isn't English and the cost of braille is enormously more than the printed word. (I have no idea how much recording services cost - my only experience in this area was working with blind coworkers who used braille)

It's true that the $$$ involved is not a big proportion of budget - in fact, I expect it's a very, very small proportion - but it's still real dollars in quantities that I suspect no one here earns, per year, and every one of those dollars could be better applied elsewhere (as I expect everyone here feels about whatever programs *they* believe are wasteful; it's not about the number of individual dollars so much as their waste).

I don't feel translations services are "wasted", even if you do. That's the difference. I view them as a needed service.

I guess I'm handicapped by having had the experience of living and working where government was not constituted and placed in translation for my own convenience. Having survived dealing with forms in another language I have this difficult-to-ditch conviction that others are capable of handling that, too.

When I went to France I made the effort to learn the language to the point of being able to communicate daily needs, but if, Og forbid, I'd needed medical or legal services while there I would have found a way to get a real translator because some things are too vital to leave to amateurs. Maybe things have changed in the ensuing 30 years, but I don't recall France having nearly as many language minorities as the US does, nonetheless, I don't think anyone would have batted an eye if I, a foreigner visiting France in an entirely legal manner, had said "Can I have a translator?" under those circumstances. In fact, how to ask for one if such a need should arise was part of the pre-trip meetings, just like learning where the US embassy was and being told to have a copy of your passport with you at all times.

Further, my own state, Indiana, actually does have English as its official, legal language. Nontheless, there is nowhere I go for government services that fails to offer those same services in other languages. See my statement regarding the local Public Aid office. So, Kanastrous, my own state, which has enshrined English as its official language STILL sees fit to offer services in other languages. In other words, going officially English hasn't saved a dime, or at least very few, at least in my state of 6 million people. It doesn't have to, yet for some reason the expense is approved year after year. Somehow, I don't think it can be attributed to some political compulsion to waste money - Indiana's budget is actually in the black (albeit barely) so obviously someone knows how to balance a budget in this state. Ditto for Illinois - another "official language is English" state that nonetheless prints LOTS of government stuff in other languages (particularly in Chicago, although I believe the city of Chicago pays for some of that translation. Over 170 languages are represented in Chicago, and there are many people there legally whose English skills are about as adequate as my French - that is, barely). I've also lived in states that aren't officially English language and frankly I can't see a damn bit of difference. Everyone these days speaks Spanish at the DMV, and some places other languages as well. The world is a polylingual place.

Sure, dealing with paperwork in an unfamiliar language requires some additional effort. I'm comfortable with allowing people to make that effort. And providing the translated paper at taxpayer expense does *not* save "everyone involved" money, Losonti: it doesn't save the taxpayer money, does it? The only savings you seem to be interested in are savings that benefit the applicant. Well, I prefer to focus on savings that benefit the country to which the application is being made.

I find this bizarre - do you think legal immigrants and naturalized citizens don't pay taxes? How very, very strange. And if they, too, are taxpayers (which they are, if they work in this country) then are not those services benefiting taxpayers? Likewise, do you think there American relatives don't pay taxes? Or are you just pissed off because these services don't benefit you, personally, but some person who "talks funny" and maybe doesn't look like you?

And there's nothing bass ackwards, about it: you wish to become a resident or citizen, so you handle the obligations involved, one reasonable one being that your dealings with the government under which you wish to move in, are in a uniform language in which said government does all of their business. Unlike you - I suspect, anyway - I have actually done what I'm talking about.

You do realize that in some states of the US government does, in fact, officially do business in more than one language? (Hawaii, Maine, New Mexico, and Louisiana if you were wondering)

In this case I'd define it as taxpayers covering an application-related service whose cost should be borne by the applicant, as part of a government that operates in one language. From an individual taxpayer perspective, it means why should I cover the costs of accommodating someone else's language when the remainder of their application expenses are their responsibility? Why shouldn't I also be responsible for hiring their attorney and/or adviser?

If they get into legal trouble and get a public defender (as is their right, by the way) you do, in fact pay for their attorney already. Just like your taxes pay for every other public defender.

Maybe taxpayers should subsidize English-language education too? (actually...maybe we should; I'd prefer that to subsidizing foreign-language paperwork...and probably to some degree somewhere we already do...)

In enlightened areas - yeah, your taxes do that, too.

Seems to me that the cost of extra paperwork in, say one language could be as high as 200% of having it in only a single official language. First you cover the costs of translation, whatever they may be. Then each piece of app paperwork in English now has an other-language duplicate: twice as much ink to buy, twice as much paper to buy, twice as much printer time to pay for, twice as much storage space, twice as much transit cost, twice as much work for the people in each office handling said paperwork...

Except those people wanting paperwork in another language aren't using an additional English form as well - it's roughly the same number of forms, just some percentage are non-English. So it's translation costs you pay for, not a duplicate effort of printing.

...but that's assuming a one to one correspondence, which may not be realistic.

It's not.

So let's say you're adding an extra, say, 25% (let's imagine that one-quarter of the forms are duplicated in the second language). It still adds up...particularly when you consider not one but multiple foreign language translations.

That's one reason for the Census recording languages spoken - so instead of having to guess agencies can have a realistic estimate of how many forms in what languages will be needed, which minimizes waste. Do you approve?

[RedImperator]

I'm still trying to figure out how translating documents is more expensive than dealing with the consequences of having millions of 1st generation immigrants, resident aliens, and migrant workers who can't fill out a tax form.

[Broomstick]

Well, hell, I"m a native speaker, 3rd generation American, quite literate, college educated, and I don't fill out my tax forms without hiring an expert to assist me - Kanastrous, however, wants people to fill these out in a language they may or may not be entirely fluent in because... I dunno. I'd rather they be done accurately in Spanish or Hmong or Mandarin than insist people fill them out inaccurately in English. Because I doubt the money we save on forms being available in other languages will pay for all the resulting audits and investigations resulting from the misunderstandings that arise from language barriers.

[Alyeska]

Well, official, government stuff, I could understand. Preventing businesses from putting signs up in other languages is something I couldn't get behind, though. Just doesn't seem reasonable.

They can't do that. Even if you can't speak English, you are entitled to the protections and services of the government. They HAVE to provide a means for you to communicate. And its fucking cheap to prepare paperwork in multiple languages.

[Kanastrous]

^ okay to all of the above.