A coalition of 79 nonprofits representing fair housing, real estate, consumer, civil rights and domestic violence organizations have called on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to reject the redesigned housing discrimination complaint form issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that would end the acceptance of complaints in languages other than English.
The department is ending the use of all seven translated versions of Form HUD-903 – the languages involved are Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese, Khmer, Korean, and Somali – while adding an English-only banner at the top of the page in a bold font. The new form also requires complainants to swear under penalty of perjury that they’ve read a page of English statutory summaries.
HUD has also removed text from the form that identifies limited English proficiency as a form of national origin discrimination. The coalition argues the changes to Form HUD-903 run afoul of the Fair Housing Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Before the new form goes into effect, HUD requires OMB’s sign-off under the Paperwork Reduction Act, which requires agencies to account for the burden a form places on the public before they can use it. The coalition is calling on the OMB to send the form back to HUD and to hold the submission until HUD finishes the fair housing complaint-processing rulemaking it has already scheduled for later this year, which is expected to change the complaint submission requirements again.
“During the nation’s fair and affordable housing crisis, HUD is making it more difficult for people to file complaints of housing discrimination,” said Nikitra Bailey, executive vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance. “Many of these families are most likely to face unlawful housing discrimination in the first place and some already fear that their voices will not be heard. Now they’re being told they will not be able to report the harm to federal authorities in languages that are currently acceptable.”
Give a 12 month time period the new All English form goes into effect. English is the primary language in USA. No more enabling foreigners. If they can’t read English they can easily get it translated if necessary & hopefully in time they will learn English. The gall of the leftists enabling foreigners never stops.
DUDE!
You don’t have to be a “leftist” to know that although, as you point out, “English is the primary language in [the] USA”, there is NO legal official language in this country, and every effort to create legislation to name English as the official language has been quashed, beginning long before Karl Marks published his manifesto. No, you don’t have to be a “leftist” to know that; you only need to be uninformed or uneducated to NOT know it!
You seem to have failed to notice in the article the statement that “The new form also requires complainants to swear under penalty of perjury that they’ve read a page of English statutory summaries.” What this means, in plain English, is that the complainant attests that he has actually read, in English, the document. It does NOT mean that he has had someone else read the document for him and translated it for him. What it also means, in plain English, is that if he signs the form without personally reading it in English, he is committing perjury.
I don’t know about you, but when my first American ancestors came to this country prior to the Civil War; they did NOT speak English. My Great-great-grandfather volunteered to serve in the US Calvary under Generals Sherman and Grant and was injured and suffered a permanent disability while serving to protect your freedom. Since then, many of my relatives, including my grandfather, father, and many uncles, aunts, cousins and nieces and nephews have risked their lives (many shed blood and even died) to protect your freedom in every major war since the Civil War.
I am neither a “leftist” nor a “foreigner”, as you so arrogantly assert, yet I recognize that we are a nation of immigrants, beginning when the first human inhabitants crossed the Bering Strait land bridge during the last ice age. None of them spoke English; in fact even those living in what is now known as England didn’t even speak a language that you would recognize as “English” today. Even Christopher Columbus and the Spaniards, Dutch and French, who conquered and inhabited the Americas for over a century prior to the arrival of the first English settlers, likely didn’t speak a word of English.
I suggest that you read the US Constitution. If you do, you will not find anything in that document that states that the rights extended through that document apply only to those who speak the English language. Heck, the Constitution doesn’t even require you to be an American to enjoy nearly all of the rights and protections guaranteed under our founding documents.
Heck, I doubt that you would even pass the basic citizenship test that immigrants must pass before becoming naturalized.
Give a 12 month time period the new All English form goes into effect. English is the primary language in USA. No more enabling foreigners. If they can’t read English they can easily get it translated if necessary & hopefully in time they will learn English. The gall of the leftists enabling foreigners never stops.