Hermiston lacrosse program seeks new home | SPORTS, A8
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143rd Year, No. 219
REGONIAN
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019
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WINNER OF THE 2019 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Rule
change
causing
worry
BACK TO SCHOOL
GETTING UP TO SPEED
Immigrant Oregonians
fear signing up for
social service programs
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE AND
RACHEL ALEXANDER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — A move by the federal
government to restrict most legal immi-
gration to those who can afford health
care, housing and food
on their own is sowing
worry among Oregon
immigrants, even those
who will not be impacted
by the rule, advocates
say.
“We have definitely
seen fear, and confu-
Rosenblum
sion from our clients
about the public charge rule,” said Beth
Englander, a public benefits attorney with
the Oregon Law Center.
Last week, the Trump administration
issued a rule saying that immigrants who
use certain public benefits could have that
counted against them if they are seeking
legal status in the U.S. — a process that
can take decades.
Oregon and four other states have sued
the Trump administration to block the
rule, which is expected to take effect Oct.
15.
“This cruel new rule punishes families
for simply being immigrants,” said Ore-
gon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
in a statement. “The rule will hit children
and families across our state who need
food and medical assistance the most.”
There are many exceptions to the
new rule, however. For example, the rule
doesn’t apply to refugees or people seek-
ing asylum.
But, Englander said, she keeps hearing
one phrase over and over — “it will come
back to haunt me.”
Even those immigrants who aren’t cov-
ered by the rule fear that it could jeopar-
dize them in unexpected ways, Englander
said.
“It’s very hard to allay people’s fears,”
she said.
Currently, the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security considers whether
an applicant for a green card will become
“primarily” dependent on the government
for income.
Using programs such as cash assis-
tance or long-term institutional care
is taken into account, according to the
Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
But under the new rule, an array of
other benefits will be considered, such as
public health care, nutrition programs and
vouchers to help pay for housing.
A public charge is defined in the new
rule as a person receiving public benefits
for 12 months or more in a 3-year period.
In Oregon, the state’s health and
human services agencies are publicizing
See Immigrants, Page A7
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Makenna Ramos reads through a portion of the Conscious Discipline training during a new teacher orientation on Tuesday.
Ramos will be a kindergarten teacher at the Pendleton Early Learning Center this year.
New Pendleton School
District teachers take part
in teacher orientation
By ALEX CASTLE
East Oregonian
P
ENDLETON — For the second
consecutive year, the Pendleton
School District will welcome a
significant number of new teach-
ers to its classrooms for the first day of
school on Tuesday.
After hiring a group of 17 new cer-
tified staff that included seven teachers
a year ago, several retirements and other
departures led to the district hiring 34
new certified staff for the 2019-20 school
year, 21 of which are teachers.
In total, 27% of the district’s certified
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
See School, Page A7
Josh McGraw, a kindergarten teacher at Pendleton Early Learning Center, teaches
a lesson to the district’s new teachers during a new teacher orientation on Tuesday.
The price of getting back to school
Teachers, parents, schools preparing
for school year, and it comes at a cost
By JESSICA POLLARD
East Oregonian
UMATILLA COUNTY
— From clothing to electron-
ics, families with K-12 stu-
dents are planning to spend
a record average of $696.70
this year on back to school
shopping according a sur-
vey recently conducted by the
National Retail Federation.
Just a part of that is school
supplies requested by districts,
but the costs add up.
A price-check of the
Hermiston School District
supply list reveals that parents
could spend upward of $30
at Walmart sending a fifth-
grader to school with every-
thing on their school supplies
list this year. Lists across the
county tell a similar tale.
It’s not a price everyone
can pay, and an incoming kin-
dergarten teacher at the Herm-
iston School District, Celie
Faircloth, knows this well.
Faircloth previously taught
in Ontario for the past seven
years. When kids would show
up without the supplies on
their lists, she said, she’s found
See Cost, Page A7
New fire chief makes first foray into Northwest
Critchley spent three
decades with Tucson
Fire Department
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Jim
Critchley has only been
interim chief of the Pendleton
Fire Department for about a
week, but he’s already made a
little bit of history.
Critchley is the first chief
to start his term at the new fire
station at 1455 S.E. Court Ave.
after taking over from for-
mer interim Fire Chief Paul
Berardi on Aug. 12.
Like Berardi, Critchley
spent his career in an entirely
different region of the country
before coming to Pendleton.
In Critchley’s case, it was
deep in the Southwest in the
Tucson, Arizona, area, where
he spent all but six months
of his life prior to coming to
Pendleton.
Growing up in Arizona,
his career ambitions weren’t
aligned with being a fire-
fighter, although his dream
job still valued water.
“I wanted to be a marine
biologist, in the middle of the
desert,” he said.
His interests started to turn
when he started attending col-
lege and he realized that he
might not be suited for the tra-
ditional academic path.
A few friends were get-
ting into firefighting, and he
decided to give it a try with a
private firefighting company.
Critchley was soon man-
ning fire trucks by him-
self, and he was attracted to
move over to the public sec-
tor when he saw the Tucson
Fire Department responding
to calls.
“They get to bring friends
on their truck,” he said.
He joined the Tucson Fire
Department in 1988, and by
then, he already aspired to
climb the ranks.
Critchley said he was
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Interim Pendleton Fire Chief Jim Critchley is shown at the new
See Chief, Page A7 Pendleton fire station Tuesday morning.