The focus of a discussion on how to better serve Austin's immigrant population went in a slightly different direction than planned last night at the Apex Austin Education Committee public forum at the senior center.

After presenting the results from a recent study on the needs of immigrants in Austin, Sue Grove, co-chair of the education committee, asked the audience to contribute any ideas, comments or questions.

But some members of the audience were more concerned with why Austin needs to address the needs of immigrants in the first place.

In response to a comment about helping Mexican immigrants with legal issues, Olgar Himle a retired Hormel employee asked, "Why do we have to pay criminals to obtain legal documents?"

A number of people expressed concern about illegal immigrants coming to Austin. The loss of jobs and money seemed to be the chief concern.

Crime was another concern, but Chief of Police Paul Philipp, who happened to be in the audience, said that immigrants were not the cause of crime in Austin.

"A small percentage of every community brings crime to the table," he said. "It's not because the Hispanics are here or the Bosnians are here or any group."

Grove and Roger Boughton, also co-chair to the education committee, told people that we should remember that the issues immigrants are dealing with are the same issues that many of our parents or grandparents had to deal with.

Boughton, originally a French Canadian, said that he and his family changed the pronunciation of their name so it did not sound different.

"You Englishized (your name) or whatever you had to do to fit in," Boughton said

Dawn Taylor, owner of an apartment complex, said that she had trouble dealing with friction from within the Sudanese community. She says that different tribes, with different languages and cultures often don't get along.

"I've had people say, 'Next time you want to rent to a Sudanese person, talk to me. I'll tell you whether they are good or bad.' Good or bad depends on what tribe they are from," Taylor said. "I think we're seeing the beginning of other cultures not being able to understand each other."

The Apex study, done by the Wilder Research Center, consisted of results from a survey of five focus groups and 22 area service organizations. They asked questions to immigrants about the good and bad aspects of living in Austin.

No immigrants were present at the meeting. Grove said that many of them worked the late shift and could not make it.

Coincidentally, many of the concerns voiced at the meeting were similar to concerns voiced by the immigrant community.

For instance, while people at the meeting said that it is frustrating when immigrants don't speak English, results of the survey showed that many immigrants found it difficult to learn English because of scheduling conflicts and financial issues.

Also, a suggestion by Ruth Schmidt, income maintenance supervisor at Human Services, was that immigrants should get involved and lead groups to help each other assimilate. This mirrored a request by a Sudanese focus group that they would like to have Sudanese people in charge of programs aimed to help their community.

Grove said that the forum went well because it is important to discuss these issues.

"It gave people the opportunity to come and talk," she said. "We are looking for solutions, and maybe out of this we will get some."

Matt Merritt can be reached at 434-2214 or by e-mail at matt.merritt@austindailyherald.com