White House Backs Senate English-Language Votes

(KCBS/AP) -- President Bush is backing the Senate's move to get immigrants to learn English.

The White House said the president agrees with two amendments that senators tacked onto the immigration bill, adding that both are ``consistent with'' Bush's views.  It added that Bush believes the command of English is the best route to assimilation for immigrants.

On Thursday, the Senate passed a Republican measure that would make English the national language. Moments later, it approved a Democrat-led amendment declaring English a ``common and unifying language.''

It passed the two amendments to add to the comprehensive immigration bill it's expected to take to the House next week.

Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe, who supports ``national'' but not ``common and unifying,'' complained that his colleagues were trying to ``have it both ways.''

The bill already requires illegal immigrants to learn English as a condition of earning legal permanent residency, a step toward citizenship.

Professor Dennis Barron, who specializes in English and Linguistics at the University of Illinois said the U.S. is actually the graveyard for foreign languages. "English is not endangered," he said.

"While there are more people in the U.S. speaking languages other than English, they're all shifting to English the longer they're here."

Just a few years ago community colleges were packed with immigrants wanting to learn English, according to Doctor Moshuet Tam, coordinator of the ESL program at San Francisco Community College.

"We were always impacted, and there were waiting lists and students couldn't get in and they were frustrated," she said.

She told KCBS' Janice Wright that enrollment has declined somewhat in recent years. In part, she guesses, because of an upswing in the economy. Language is no longer at the head of the class.

"Students who could find a job would work first and think about college later," said Tam.

Tam said she hears from the business community about students that employers would like to promote to the next level, but their English skills just aren't good enough.

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