You already know I support the premise of requiring immigrants (for that matter, all Americans) to be at least functionally literate with reading, writing and speaking English.  I’d even accept requiring them to match Dubya’s lack of skills in that area since even he can (laughably and with many mistakes) carry on a simple conversation.  As part of the whole immigration debate, I don’t think this is too much to ask.

Part of my thinking is that having a national language standard tends to be a unifying trait for all citizens, it eases the burden of interaction, it reduces the cost of elections and other governmental functions, and it serves to demonstrate what I feel is a reasonable expectation that those who enter our country should make at least some effort to meet us where we are rather than demanding we change our ways to compensate for their lack of English skills.  For those reasons and many others, I was happy to hear about legislation being drafted in Congress that would make this happen.

Then along comes George Will, a conservative commentator, journalist, and columnist who I respect very much.  Based on his findings, we already have such a law on the books that simply isn’t being enforced, and that lack of enforcement is causing all manner of difficulty throughout the nation as states are forced to cover the multilingual requirements of their citizens.  This burden is unnecessary if the federal government would simply enforce the laws that were passed a century ago.  To wit:

“Of course not.” That was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s answer Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” when asked whether he would favor prohibiting bilingual ballots.

“Of course not”? Did he mean, “This is not something about which decent people differ”?

To understand why millions of conservatives do not trust Washington to think clearly or act reasonably about immigration, consider bilingual ballots. These conservatives, already worried that both the rule of law and national identity are becoming attenuated because of illegal immigration, now have another worry: The federal government’s chief law enforcement official may need a refresher course on federal law pertaining to legal immigrants.

In 1906, the year before a rabbi in a Passover sermon coined the phrase “melting pot” during torrential immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, Congress passed, and President Theodore Roosevelt signed, legislation requiring people seeking to become naturalized citizens to demonstrate oral English fluency. In 1950 the requirement was strengthened to require people to “demonstrate an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write, and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language.”

Hence, if someone needs a ballot written in a language other than English, that need proves the person obtained citizenship only because the law was not enforced when he or she sought citizenship. So one reason for ending ballots in languages other than English is that continuing them makes a mockery of the rule of law, including even the prospective McCain-Kennedy law that pro-immigration groups favor.

I found that quite interesting.  Not that I’m surprised our Attorney General, the offspring of illegal immigrants himself, is so unfamiliar with our nation’s laws and blatantly disinterested in enforcing them except when it suits his master’s political aspirations.  On the contrary, I’m surprised to learn the English requirement is already part of our immigration requirements.  Despite this, it obviously is not enforced at all given the proliferation of new Americans who can not speak the language with even the competence of a first grader.

And the premise of bilingual ballots, a provision enacted in 1975, is the federal government’s disinclination to enforce its own laws.  For that matter, it demonstrates their willingness to pass laws that directly contradict existing laws.  George goes on to explain:

[The prospective McCain-Kennedy law] contains several requirements that those aspiring to citizenship demonstrate “a knowledge of the English language” or “English fluency” in order “to promote the patriotic integration of prospective citizens into the American way of life” and into “American common values and traditions.” How can legislators support language such as that and ballots in multiple languages?

Fifty-six House Republicans have sent a letter, instigated by Rep. Steve King of Iowa, asking that Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act be allowed to expire. When the measure was enacted in 1965, it said nothing about bilingual ballots. Section 203, requiring bilingual ballots in jurisdictions with certain demographic characteristics, was added in the 1975 extension of the act. The King letter was sent to Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He favors extending Section 203 and the rest of the act until 2032 because it helps facilitate “the participation of language minority citizens in the political process.”

But what public good is advanced by encouraging the participation of people who, by saying they require bilingual assistance, are saying they cannot understand the nation’s political conversation? By receiving such assistance they are receiving a disincentive to become proficient in English.

I believe by receiving such assistance they also are being urged to continue in violation of the federal language requirements, not to mention, as George points out, making a mockery of the rule of law in our country.  If we say people must speak English to be a citizen yet fail to enforce that requirement, and we even go so far as to jump through hoops to make our governmental processes easier for those who do not speak English as already required by law, we do nothing more than propagate the increasing difficulty our citizens must endure.  We also must shoulder the financial burden created by the need for bilingual ballots, translators within various law enforcement agencies, translators at various governmental agencies (including social services), and on and on the list goes.

Ultimately, George is right:

Declaring English the national language is a mere gesture. But by ending bilingual ballots, American law would perform its expressive function of buttressing, by codifying and vivifying, certain national assumptions and aspirations. Among those is this: The idea of citizenship becomes absurd when sundered from the ability to understand the nation’s civic conversation.

What makes Americans generally welcoming of immigrants, and what makes immigrants generally assimilable, is that this is a creedal nation, one dedicated to certain propositions, not one whose origins and identity are bound up with ethnicity. But if you are to be welcomed to the enjoyment of American liberty, then America has a few expectations of you. One is that you can read the nation’s founding documents and laws and can comprehend the political discourse that precedes the casting of ballots.

Is this unreasonable? Of course not.