On Friday, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano signed a second of two Executive Orders guaranteeing translation and interpretation services to all limited-English proficient (LEP) residents in their interactions with County Government.
Recent emergency and relief efforts have shown the importance of county agencies being able to communicate effectively and efficiently with all Nassau County residents, including the more than 130,000 county residents with limited ability to read, write, or speak English.
The Nassau County Executive Orders align Nassau County with Suffolk County and New York State’s similar executive orders in 2011 and 2012 that guaranteed such language assistance services, and make Nassau one of the first suburban counties in the United States to enact a comprehensive language access policy.
Under the provisions of the Order, all county agencies will, among other things, be required to:
· Translate essential public documents and forms into the top six languages spoken by LEP residents of Nassau County-namely, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Persian, Korean, and French Creole
· Provide interpretation services to all LEP Nassau residents;
· Designate a language access coordinator and draft plans for complying with this Executive Order in the next 120 days; and
· Refrain from using language access services use as a basis for inquiring about, or sharing, immigration status.
Long Island Wins’ allies were instrumental in pushing for this new policy, The organizations included the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, Make the Road New York, New York Communities for Change, the Central American Refugee Center, the Long Island Language Advocates Coalition, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, the Center for Popular Democracy, the Empire Justice Center, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Long Island Jobs with Justice, La Fuente-Long Island Civic Participation Project, and SEPA Mujer.
