Learning English

The recent immigration reform discussion has focused much attention on the citizenship application and the need to speak English. The Senate has spent much time debating the need to raise the bar for illegal immigrants. This discussion by our so called leaders demonstrates their total ignorance of the immigration process. I recently became a naturalised US citizen.

First off the test is conducted in English. If you don't have fairly decent Englieh you couldn't pass this test. Notably older people (over 70 or so) are exempt from the English requirement and parts of the civics requirement. There is no need to require any higher degree of English in the current test format.

Secondly, they talk about increasing the civics requirement for the test. Here are the questions I was asked:

1. Who was President during the civil war?
2. How many seats are there in the US House of Representatives?
3. Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?
4. How many states are there?
5. Who has the power to declare war?

Few American born citizens can score 5 out of 5 on this test (I challenge you to get these without looking up the answers). In other words, we already hold immigrants to a standard higher than the majority of Americans. We don't need to revamp this process.

This discussion by the dunces in the Senate is meant to distract us from the bigger issues of immigration reform which they will surely fail to address by the time a bill hits the Dunce in Chief's desk.