Bush Shows Immigrants’ Efforts to Join U.S. Society

President Bush on Wednesday highlighted efforts by immigrants to assimilate into U.S. culture as he spent a second day on the road promoting his vision for changes to immigration law.

Immigration has become a divisive issue in Congress, as many conservatives in Bush’s party oppose his proposals to create a guest worker program and create a path toward citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

To draw more support from those conservatives, Bush has been focusing on efforts to better secure the U.S.-Mexico border and to crack down on employers who hire illegal workers.

On Wednesday, however, he sought to show that immigrants take steps to assimilate, such as learning English, when they enter the United States.

Bush visited an Omaha community center that offers civics classes to immigrants, as well as help in starting businesses.

“I saw a place where people are learning to speak English and learning the civic lessons of what it means to be an American citizen,” Bush said later in a speech at an Omaha community college.

“I sat around a table with entrepreneurs, people from different countries, all of whom are bound by a common dream of owning their own business.

“When you hear people like me talk about assimilation, that’s what we’re talking about: helping people assimilate into America, helping us remain one nation under God,” he said.

After returning to Washington later in the day, Bush signed an executive order creating a task force on new Americans, to be headed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

The task force is to guide the government on how to help legal immigrants become part of American society. It is also intended to encourage businesses, through public-private partnerships, to offer English language and civics classes to employees, and to look for ways to expand such instruction through faith-based, community and other groups.

“It’s going to work to help people at the grass-roots level expand the teaching of English and civics and history instruction programs, to help others assimilate into America,” Bush said in Omaha.

In visiting Nebraska, Bush came to a state that has been divided over immigration. Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, is allied with Bush in calling for a guest worker program and for a path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants, as well as for more border security.

But in a twist, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) broke with most lawmakers in his party and voted against Senate legislation that would create a guest worker program and a path to citizenship.

Bush, in his speech at Metropolitan Community College, praised Hagel several times.

For the most part, Bush talked as he had before about the need to enforce border security, calling for 6,000 more Border Patrol agents by the end of his term. He also repeated his call for a broadened guest worker program so that U.S. businesses could fill jobs “that Americans aren’t doing.”

“You can’t enforce the border like the American people expect us with just Border Patrol and technology alone,” he said. “So long as there’s that strong desire for people to improve their lives, to do whatever it takes to come to America to work, it’s going to make it really hard to enforce that border. And so the best way to do it is to have a plan so people don’t feel like they have to sneak in.”

At the Juan Diego Center, Bush visited several classes. He sat with a group of immigrants who had used the center’s business resources, urging them to continue to work hard so their children could go to college.

He said he imagined that in the early 1900s, there were similar gatherings of European immigrants trying to start businesses.

“I suspect you’d find a table with Italians, Germans and others escaping oppression sitting around the table,” he said.