Some have criticized and will criticize this as a tragic departure from our Nations heritage. That we will hear from our Nations tradition. a return to the mean spiritedness. to the limitation of human endeavor and more. Oh. you will hear it all. that tradition of ours is not requiring an immigrant to have particular skills before he or she enters the country. Some of my Judiciary Committee colleagues noted that their relatives did not have to speak English when they entered. so we should not require a skill in these times. I hope that argument will be quickly dispatched. Our immigration laws moved away from this skillsneutral approach decades ago. For many years we have admitted aliens. and this is important. we have admitted aliens who. at the time of application for a visa. have advanced academic degrees. they have "exceptional ability in the sciences or the arts." I have not heard people object to those reasonable requirements. My immigrant ancestors certainly did not have Ph.D.s or "exceptional ability in the sciences and the arts." nor do I imagine did many of our ancestors of many of our colleagues. Thus. we should approach the English language ability in the same way. It is simply another skill that immigrants in a very limited category might possess that would serve our country well and serve them well. Let me emphasize that this amendment is not. despite the allegations of some. a proposal smacking of racist or ethnocentric overtones. If you wish to get a flavor of that debate. go back and look at the debate of Sam Hayakawa. the Senator from California. and those who pressed for his amendment and those who were resisting it.
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