LOS ANGELES (KABC) — As wildfires tore through Southern California earlier this year, wireless emergency alerts provided critical, life-saving information. But for many in immigrant communities, language barriers meant they never received the message.
On Tuesday afternoon, lawmakers gathered to urge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to act on a bipartisan order that would require wireless providers to offer emergency alerts in multiple languages, including American Sign Language (ASL).
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez and Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., are pressing the agency’s chair to implement the multilingual wireless emergency alerts order. The measure, adopted on a bipartisan basis in 2023, would mandate that 18 template alerts for emergencies like wildfires, earthquakes, and other natural disasters be made available in the 12 most commonly spoken languages in the United States.
“The delay in doing this is going to cost lives, and this is a simple step; it just requires this to be published in the federal register, that’s it,” said Congresswoman Barragan.
The publication would begin the clock on a 30-month timeline to implement the multilingual alerts. That step was expected in January, but has yet to occur.
Advocacy groups say the consequences of inaction are already clear. The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Equity Alliance, a coalition of community-based organizations, says a recent study found that more than 12,000 Asian Americans and immigrants living in four wildfire evacuation zones needed language assistance during recent emergencies.
“For the federal administration to take a step backward, when this should really be a non-controversial, non-partisan step to help immigrant communities across the nation, is appalling,” said Hoang Nguyen, with AAPI Equity Alliance.
In the absence of federal support, the organization created its own emergency resource manual to help non-English speakers better understand what resources were available to them.
“The reality is: government should be providing this information,” Nguyen said.
In response to a request for comment, an FCC spokesperson said multilingual alerts can already be issued by alert originators.
“Alert originators can send out multilingual wireless emergency alerts today,” the agency said in a statement. “Any suggestion to the contrary is both false and risks misleading alert originators that may want to send them out.”
However, the FCC did not respond to a follow-up question about whether wireless providers currently have the technical capability to deliver those alerts in languages other than English directly to users’ devices.
Supporters of the measure warn that without urgent action, more lives could be at risk during the next natural disaster.
