English Proficiency Is the Wrong Measure of Citizenship

BY SOLOMON BURGESS EISENBERG

Over the last year, Congress has pursued several efforts to raise the level of English proficiency required for naturalization. These efforts, coupled with changes the executive branch made to the citizenship test that toughened the English proficiency requirement, move our citizenship laws in the wrong direction. Requiring English proficiency for citizenship is fundamentally unjust, unwise, and inconsistent with the values that the United States claims to uphold. Rather than raising the English proficiency requirement for citizenship, America should eliminate it entirely.

Citizenship is not a mere legal designation or passport; it makes someone a stakeholder in American society. A citizen is afforded unique rights and protections but is expected to contribute to our nation through hard work, civic participation, and social responsibility. Naturalization is a form of quid pro quo: citizens contribute meaningfully to society and, in return, receive various social and political privileges. Those who strengthen our economy, culture, and society should not be denied citizenship. There are countless immigrants who toil tirelessly and contribute to our shared prosperity. When we refuse citizenship to those who add substantial value to our country on the basis of language proficiency, we fail to uphold our end of the social contract, taking unfair advantage of others’ work without providing the benefits that American citizenship confers.

English proficiency does not select for good citizens; it selects for those fortunate enough to have been born in an English-speaking country or wealthy enough to afford English-language instruction. Even among immigrants from non-Anglo countries, the requirement produces stark inequalities. Germanic and Romance language-speakers benefit from shared linguistic qualities with English, whereas speakers of languages like Japanese, Mandarin, or Hindi have to adjust to an entirely new vocabulary and grammatical structure.

Moreover, linguistically proximate nations are generally far more culturally similar to the United States than those with dissimilar languages. When we bias our selection in favor of immigrants from these countries, we risk narrowing—rather than enriching— the cultural breadth of our nation’s citizenry. America’s greatness derives from the principle that no matter your background, if you work hard, you can achieve success. In enforcing a requirement profoundly influenced by accident of birth, we betray this principle.

Recent changes to naturalization standards reveal a troubling trend of bolstering unnecessary and exclusionary barriers to citizenship. We, as citizens of a nation built on the pillars of democracy, must recognize this is fundamentally at odds with the ideals that underlie the United States.