English Fluency Rises As An Immigration Reform Issue For Republicans

English Fluency Issue For GOP

WEST MIAMI Within two square blocks, residents of this small city next to Miami can buy groceries, play bingo, talk to their mail carrier, get liposuction surgery — and even renew their US passports — without hearing or speaking a syllable of English. A command of Spanish, in fact, is critical to civic life, more so than almost anywhere else in the United States.

Yet the city’s most prominent political son, Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, has been attempting to use his position at the fulcrum of America’s immigration debate to toughen a requirement that immigrants learn English if they want to stay on a path to citizenship.

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