The uproar over illegal immigration seemed to have cooled, after a fiery year in which President George W. Bush’s reform bill collapsed in Congress and Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s drivers license plan for the undocumented crashed and burned.
But the topic still smolders on Long Island, where an elected official’s survey recently yielded intriguing responses.
Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) published a questionnaire on immigration reform in a recent electronic newsletter. He says more than 1,300 families from his 2nd Congressional District answered and returned it.
Asked first if they support deporting all the nation’s estimated 12 million illegals, 49 percent said yes, 38 percent said no, and the rest were undecided.
Yet on the very next question, 58 percent agreed with establishing “an earned path to legalization if illegal immigrants paid fines and back taxes.” Thirty-four percent disagreed.
Sounds as if citizens surmise that mass deportations are not about to happen, and if any policy is ever shaped, it will have some citizenship path included.
The clearest consensus emerged in a third question: whether the U.S. should increase resources for securing its borders, a move supported by 85 percent of respondents, Israel said.
Dan Janison
Comments (1)
English as the official language
As far as I know the official language of the United States is ENGLISH. (defacto)
I am astounded at how far our government and various Utility companies and others have distorted and resorted to abolish/modify English as our language.
When I contact various companies and utilities, I am given a choice to punch a button for English or Spanish.
English should not be a choice, it should be mandatory.
In some stores you cannot even find literature in English, only in Spanish.
Any company/Organization who does not default to English automatically should be boy cut from doing business with.
Any one who wants to live in this country legally and benefit (any benefit whatsoever) from our system, must speak, read and write English or be deported.
When you travel around the world, no country has subrogated their language to any other foreign language, why should we.
We should demand from our government – Federal, State, and County and any local governments and agencies throughout the United States to implement that strategy or be thrown out of office
Jay 1-21-2008
"The Committee to maintain English as our official language"
The English language shall be the official language of the United States. As the official language, the English language shall be used for all public acts including every order, resolution, vote, or election, and for all records and judicial proceedings of the Government of the United States and the governments of the several States.
Also introduced in the 107th Congress was this text from H.R. 3333:
The Government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the official language of the United States of America. Unless specifically stated in applicable law, no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English. If exceptions are made, that does not create a legal entitlement to additional services in that language or any language other than English.
President Theodore Roosevelt once said, "We have one language here, and that is the English language, and we intend to see that the [assimilation] crucible turns our people out as Americans."
Today America's linguistic unity, which enabled the melting-pot crucible to forge one nation out of millions of immigrants from all over the world, is under attack as never before. Record numbers of non-English speaking immigrants threaten to overwhelm the assimilative process. And instead of encouraging new immigrants to acquire the English fluency needed to succeed in our society, the policy of our government is to promote "diversity" by operating in ever growing numbers of foreign languages.
Learning to speak English empowers immigrants. By more than 2-1 immigrants themselves say the U.S. should expect new immigrants to learn English (1) and by a 9-1 margin Hispanic immigrants believe learning English is essential to succeed in the U.S. (2)