At least this illegal immigrant really wanted to learn English, unlike many legal immigrants. How long till America falls behind the rest of the world in speaking our own language? I'm all for legal immigration, but is really too much to ask that immigrants learn English?
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Did you notice they said he would have been eligible for adult learning classes? If he hadn't been arrested...
MW: I'm all for legal immigration, but is really too much to ask that immigrants learn English?
The devil is in the details. How does one measure if someone knows enough english? There are the obvious cases...my parents grew up in India, but if you were to talk to them on the phone, you would never guess that either of them weren't native speakers. On the other hand, there are people who speak no more than 10 words of english. Those two cases are obvious.
But what about people in the middle? I know many people who communicate with poor grammer and poor spelling, and a less diverse vocabulary than native speakers, but have good jobs and get by just fine. They clearly know enough english. So where do you draw the line?