Making English official just an anti-immigrant step

President Donald Trump's recent declaration of English as the official language of the US may seem relatively benign.

- Patricia Lopez

Most residents already speak English and most immigrants are eager to learn it. Under most presidents, such a directive might have been largely symbolic. After all, 32 states already have English as their official language. But Trump isn't most presidents. He has demonised immigrants for more than a decade, making them the scapegoats for nearly every societal ill. In his first term he complained that too many of them came from “(expletive) countries.” At a campaign event last March, he decried those who speak languages “that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It's a very horrible thing.” In his address to Congress, he touted his new executive order and accused legal immigration of resulting in “beautiful towns destroyed.”