Thurmont officials push for English-only ordinance

Burns said officials do not intend to use the resolution, which may be voted on Monday, to discriminate against people who can’t speak English.

The resolution, if passed, would be nearly identical to resolutions passed in April and May in Frederick County and Walkersville, respectively. The resolution would force Thurmont to conduct its business only in English.

The Frederick Board of County Commissioners passed a resolution in April proclaiming English as the county government’s official language. The resolution was neither a new law nor a change to the county code. It requires the county government to do nothing.

Thurmont already conducts meetings and publishes town documents in English.

Thurmont resident Sabrina Massett criticized the resolution, calling it an ‘‘an unfriendly message.”

‘‘It’s peculiar to me that this comes at a time when” illegal immigration is a ‘‘hot-button issue,” Massett told Burns at a town meeting.

Burns admitted he has no knowledge of the town ever receiving a request for town materials in any language other than English. He added that he has directed Thurmont Police Chief Gregory L. Eyler to look into joining the 287G deportation program, which would allow Thurmont police to receive training from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] to check the immigration status of people they arrest. The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office joined the program in February.

Thurmont Commissioners Ronald A. Terpko and Robert E. Lookingbill defended the resolution. ‘‘This is the United States of America,” Lookingbill said. This ‘‘is supposed to be the melting pot.”

Terpko decried the use of ‘‘taxpayer dollars” to pay for non-English materials.

The purpose of Thurmont’s three-page resolution ‘‘is to help immigrants better assimilate and take full advantage of economic and occupational opportunities in the Town of Thurmont, State of Maryland and the United States of America,” the resolution states. The resolution will also ‘‘preserve unity in diversity and ... prevent the division along linguistic lines.”

Thurmont resident Carol Hutson told commissioners that a lack of incentive to learn English puts a ‘‘handicap” on new immigrants.

‘‘I don’t understand the concept of ‘Don’t learn the language,’” Hutson said. ‘‘I do not feel that I should have to ‘push 1’ to hear my language.”

A spokesman from Casa de Maryland, a Silver Spring-based nonprofit whose ‘‘primary mission is to work with the community to improve the quality of life and fight for equal treatment and full access to resources and opportunities for low-income Latinos and their families,” according to its Web site, told officials that efforts to teach English to immigrants should accompany the resolution.

Thurmont’s resolution, like Walkersville’s, is based on one passed in Taneytown, in Carroll County. A message left Tuesday for Taneytown Mayor James L. McCarron Jr. was not returned by The Gazette’s press time.

Walkersville Commissioner Donald W. Schildt led the charge to make English the official language in that town of about 5,600 people. I ‘‘can’t remember the president’s name, but when they opened up Ellis Island, they said they’re more than welcome, but they had to live by our rules and learn our language,” Schildt said at a town meeting in May.