Congress needs to focus on U.S. citizens, not illegal aliens

Statement by U.S. English, Inc. Chairman Mauro E. Mujica

Congress must stop discussing silly amnesty plans and focus on the needs of the people who elected them. At a time when millions of American citizens struggle to make ends meet, members of Congress need to take their eyes off of illegal immigrants who break the law and concentrate their attention on those who follow it.

In 1965, I legally immigrated to the United States from Chile. Today, I stand with 270 million U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who stand behind the land of the red, white and blue. In return, we ask our government to keep its promise, maintaining our safety and providing for a better tomorrow. Yet instead of addressing basic goals for legal residents, both parties are bending over backward to accommodate illegal aliens.

What is wrong with the members of our current multicultural society that leads our legislators to shun them in favor of lawbreakers? Instead of listening to the special interests, each member of Congress should take a long, hard look at the fabric that makes up this nation.

Whether at Wal-Marts in South Dakota, hotels in Mississippi or farms in Vermont, they will find hard-working, honest and law-abiding Americans working at the so-called “jobs Americans aren’t filling.” In each state, they will hear the call for English to be made the official language, the same request that a wide majority of Americans have been making for years.

What they will not find are people willing to be ignored. In fact, the current posturing by the Democrat and Republican parties to capture a handful of votes in a so-called “voting bloc” appears to be no more productive than arguing over who has the better plan to jump off a cliff. If our members of Congress are not going to act on behalf of American citizens, they might want to consider jumping before an angry electorate tosses them to the curb.

U.S. English, Inc. is the nation's oldest and largest non-partisan citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. Founded in 1983 by the late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of California, U.S. English, Inc. (www.usenglish.org) now has more than 1.8 million members.