Illegal Aliens Can Get DTV Coupons
Bush Administration Officials Says Aliens Can Participate in $1.5 billion Subsidy Program
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 10/2/2007 9:15:00 AM MT
Washington – A Bush Administration official said Tuesday he would make no effort to exclude illegal aliens from receiving benefits under a $1.5 billion subsidy program designed to keep analog TV sets running after the transition to all-digital television in February 2009.
“We don’t have any restrictions on the program with regard to any classification, whether it’s immigration status or economic status ...” said John Kneuer, the Commerce Department official who is running the DTV converter box program.
According to some estimates, 70 million analog TV sets that can’t display a digital signal will go dark when analog TV is cutoff on Feb. 17, 2009. Keeping those sets working will generally require a digital-to-analog converter or a connection to cable or satellite TV.
Under a law signed last year by President Bush, the converter program is open to any “requesting household” from Jan. 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009. Each household may apply for two $40 coupons for use at a retail outlet meeting Commerce Department criteria.
Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, endorsed Kneuer’s open-eligibility approach.
“I think we should be trying to focus on how we can make sure that everyone’s able to participate in the program to the maximum extent,” Martin said.
Univision president and CEO Joe Uva, a panelist with Kneuer and Martin, said he agreed “100% with chairman Martin” on keeping the box program wide open.
Kneuer and Martin addressed the converter box program at DTV transition forum held here by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Fifteen to 20 million households rely exclusively on over-the-air TV, and the impact of the transition is expected to fall disproportionately on Spanish-speaking homes.
“Almost half ... of all homes where Spanish is the primary language rely exclusively on over-the-air television,” Martin said.
Rep. Joe Baca (R-Ca.), chairman of the 22-member Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said no one should be excluded from applying for coupons.
“I believe that everybody that is here who has purchased a TV should receive [a coupon]. They are paying taxes, they are purchasing and it’s going back to the consumer and it’s going back to the state. So that’s revenue that’s generated back into our country, too, as well,” Baca said.
Randy Capps, an immigration specialist at the Urban Institute, said access to converter box subsidies by illegal aliens wouldn’t be a radical departure, noting that immigration status can’t be used to deny public schooling or certain public health services.
Capps added that keeping the program open probably made sense because checking the legal statutes of coupon applicants could be prohibitively expensive.
Demand for coupons by illegal aliens could be small, he added.
“Not that many undocumented immigrants are going to come forward because they are going to be afraid to,” Capps said.
The U.S. has about 12 million illegal aliens, according to William H. Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. The Commerce Department has funding for 33.5 million converter boxes after administrative costs.
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Secure our borders of WHAT? Poor people who need a job to support their family! WHEN HAVE YOU...
Angie Rodriguez - 2007-3-10 11:55:00 -
Telemundo is not broadcast over the air, the DTV coupons would not benefit an illegal, unless...
Ricardo - 2007-3-10 11:12:00 -
And by the way, Baca, you profer that "illegals are paying taxes..." - Dude, sales...
Disgusted Crowdifornian - 2007-3-10 03:47:00 -
Jeeez. I was REALLY worried about this. Whether or not illegals would be able to watch their...
Disgusted Crowdafornian - 2007-3-10 03:36:00
