“Assimilate or go home,” read the sign at Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s side as he held forth on the Senate floor last month about the proposed American System for Sustainable Immigration and Mass Immigration Limitations Achieved Through Imposing Oversight Nationally Act that he and Rep. Andy Ogles were about to introduce (yes, that works out to ASSIMILATION). Tuberville of Alabama and Ogles of Tennessee are both media personalities more than Republican legislators and there’s little chance of their bill becoming law, which would sharply reduce legal immigration and require would-be immigrants to be proficient in English before they arrive. But one thing Tuberville said at least merits public refutation:
For most of our history, people have come here to become Americans. They came here to assimilate. They worked hard. They learned. They followed the law and they contributed. That’s what this country is all about. Today, we’re seeing large numbers, and I mean large numbers, of people coming into this country with no intentions of assimilating into our culture or our way of life.
This is a persistent theme in current right-wing commentary about immigration — that recent arrivals to the U.S. aren’t working hard, aren’t following the law and generally aren’t fitting in as past generations of immigrants did. It’s also a load of hooey.
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