Voting ballots. welfare applications and all types of official government documents are now issued in languages other than English. Recently. USA Today reported that eight immigrants have filed suit in Miami against English requirement for U.S. citizenship. A federal judge may now be able to strike down our longstanding requirement that prospective new citizens must demonstrate a minimum command of the English language. Elderly immigrants are already exempt from this fairly basic standard. This suit was brought because U.S. citizenship is required for full access to certain federal benefits. The attorney who filed the complaint will no doubt argue that since so many government services are already provided in languages other than English. an English requirement for citizenship is unnecessary. I am not surprised that this case has been filed. only that it was not filed many years earlier. U.S. citizenship was something that immigrants took justifiable pride in earning. They carried their English workbooks with them everywhere. The Clinton Administrations 199596 Citizenship USA program effectively waived English requirements in an attempt to naturalize many more voters for the presidential ticket. Todays immigrants have merely adapted the same disparaging stance toward English that many in our government adopted in the 1960s and 1970s. It is now a serious question whether the children of immigrants should be taught English in Americas public schools. California voters were forced to pass an initiative last year in an attempt to force taxpayerfunded public schools to teach immigrant children English. My Declaration of Official Language Act will restore the place of English in our nations government and public school system. The legislation I am proposing is not only the right thing to do. it is also the popular thing to do.
Identified stereotypes
Suggests that immigrants today have a disparaging stance toward English.