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By Senator Lamar Alexander

About 14 years ago, I attended the annual Italian-American dinner in Washington, D.C. The dinner that year was in honor of my law school roommate, Paul Tagliabue, who is known to most Americans as the commissioner of the National Football League.

The boisterous room was filled with men and women bursting with pride in their Italian heritage. There were cheers for Scalia the Justice, for Stallone the actor, for Pelosi the congresswoman, and of course, for Tagliabue the NFL commissioner.

But what struck me most about the evening was not just the pride in their Italian heritage. It was their pride in America. This pride was spontaneous and unembarrassed. You felt it in the speeches, in the singing of our national anthem and in the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. They were proud that their ancestors were from Italy, but they were even prouder to be American.

For several weeks, the United States Senate has been engaged in an overdue debate about how to reform our immigration laws.

Because as many as 10,000 illegal aliens cross the U.S. border every day, comprehensive immigration reform should start with border security. It is hypocritical for the United States of America to preach to the world about the rule of law yet thumb our nose at the 12 million people who are living here illegally. It is hypocritical, and it is dangerous to our security not to control our own borders.

Then, once we secure the border and can uphold our limits on immigration, we should get quickly back to the American tradition of maintaining a legal status for those who temporarily work and study in the United States and who, by doing so, enrich our diversity, spur our economy and help export American values to the rest of the world. These temporary students and workers from other countries have helped us create an economy that last year produced 30 percent of the world’s wealth for us Americans - who constitute just five percent of the world’s population.

Finally, my goal during the immigration debate has been to make sure that we don’t stop there, that we don’t overlook, as Paul Harvey might say, the rest of the immigration story — that is, helping prospective citizens who are legally here become Americans. Our country’s greatest accomplishment is based upon still another principle: that is, we have united people from many backgrounds into one nation based upon our belief in a few ideas rather than upon race, ancestry or background. Of all the principles that we will be debating these next two weeks, none is more important than that one we have chosen as our national motto. It is carved in stone above the presiding officer’s desk in the Senate: E Pluribus Unum, one from many.

That is why I was pleased that the Senate adopted an amendment I proposed to help legal residents, who say they want to assume the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship, to learn our common language, our history and our way of government by:

• Providing them with $500 grants for English courses paid for by private donations and fees charged to immigrants.
• Allowing those who become fluent in English to apply for citizenship after four years instead of five.
• Providing grants to organizations to offer courses in American history and civics.
• Authorizing a new foundation to assist in these efforts.
• Codifying the Oath of Allegiance which new citizens swear when they are naturalized.
• Asking the Homeland Security Department to carry out a strategy to highlight the ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens.
• Establishing an award to recognize the contributions of outstanding new American citizens.

Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington has written that most of our politics is about conflicts among the principles that unite us as a country. More than any other subject we might discuss, this immigration debate will involve the basic principles of what it means to be an American.

Each year we welcome about one million permanent new legal residents, many of whom go on to become citizens. To become an American is a significant accomplishment. First, you must live in the United States as a legal permanent resident for five years. Next you must speak English. Next you must learn about our history and government. Next you must swear an oath and renounce the government of the country from which you came-and then swear allegiance to the United States of America. This oath dates back to May 12, 1778, when General George Washington and his general officers at Valley Forge signed an oath very similar to the one that more than 500,000 new American citizens took last year in hundreds of naturalization ceremonies all over America.

Here is a portion of the oath that Washington and his general officers swore:

“I, George Washington, Commander in chief of the Armies of the United States of America, do acknowledge the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, to be Free, Independent and Sovereign States, and declare that the people thereof owe no allegiance or obedience to George the Third, King of Great-Britain; and I renounce, refuse and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him; and I do swear that I will to the utmost of my power, support, maintain and defend the said United States . . .”

The language in the oath that immigrants take today comes from Washington’s oath in 1778, where they renounce their old government and swear allegiance to ours. In both the last session of Congress and this session I have introduced legislation, S. 1087, to put the wording of the Oath of Allegiance into law, giving it the same dignity as “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Becoming an American is also a unique accomplishment because it has nothing to do with ancestry. America is an idea, not a race. We are united by principles expressed in our founding documents-the very principles that we are debating in this immigration legislation-not by our multiple ancestries.

Americans enjoy more rights than the citizens of any nation on the face of the earth and our founders recognized, as every citizen and prospective citizen must, that along with those rights come responsibilities. The new citizen, like those who came before, must appreciate this simple but fundamental truth. In a free society freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.

Some suggest that our diversity is what makes our country great. To be sure, diversity is one of our strengths, but diversity is not our greatest strength. Jerusalem is diverse. The Balkans are diverse. Iraq is diverse. The greatest accomplishment of the United States of America is that we have molded that magnificent diversity into one nation based upon a set of common principles, language and traditions. That is why the words above the desk say “One from many,” not “many from one.”

* * *

We can look to Great Britain and France to be reminded just how fortunate we are to have had two centuries of practice helping new citizens become Americans.

Last August, when he announced a number of measures regarding British citizenship, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “People who want to be British citizens should share our values and our way of life.” These new rules were spurred by the terrorist attack in London last July in which four young men, three of whom were British born children of Pakistani immigrants, bombed the London subway system.

France is facing a similar period of self examination on integrating immigrants and the children of immigrants following violent civil unrest there last November. According to the French ambassador, “These teenagers feel alienated and discriminated against both socially and economically. They don’t want to assert their difference. They want to be considered 100 percent French.”

But it is difficult to imagine ‘becoming French’ or ‘becoming British’ or Japanese or Chinese or German. On the other hand, to be a citizen of this country, one must become an American. We should be wise enough to take a lesson from the difficulties of our friends overseas and redouble our effort to help new citizens become Americans. This is, of course, one more reason to control our borders-so that we know who is coming from other countries and can help those who legally choose to stay to become American.

Americans have always understood that perhaps the most important limit on how many new citizens this country can successfully absorb depends upon how many can be assimilated as Americans. Robert Putnam has written in “Bowling Alone” how at the beginning of the 20th century, when America experienced an influx of foreigners about as great in terms of percentages as that of today, the nation took seriously the issue of assimilation. It was during this time that civic organizations such as the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and Rotary clubs were launched. Many industries had programs that taught English and history to foreign workers. The most important agent of assimilation was the common school. The late Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that the public school was created largely to “teach immigrant children reading, writing and arithmetic-and what it means to be an American.”

Today U.S. history is not as important a part of the school curriculum as it once was. As a result, high school seniors score lower on U.S. history than on any other subject. I have worked with a number of senators to help put the teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place in our schools so our children can grow up learning what it means to be an American.

But while we are teaching our children more about what it means to be an American, we should also be stepping up efforts to help the 500,000 to one million permanent legal residents who are living among us and who will this year become United States citizens.

Several weeks ago, I was on a congressional delegation trip to India, Europe and the Middle East, and I visited with our Ambassador to Italy. He said that Italy is dealing with the problem of “how to become Italian,” because Italy needs more people. It has a population of 58 million, the second lowest birth rate in Europe, the largest percentage of elderly, 2.9 million legal immigrants, and over 500,000 illegal immigrants. A large number of Muslims who live there don’t feel they are a part of Italy.

Italy has formed a council to deal with the problem and sent four Muslims who live in Italy to the United States to study the issue. When she returned from the trip, a woman from Algeria who has lived in Italy for 16 years said to our Ambassador to Italy, “For the first time, I feel Italian.” He asked why. She said, “When I went to America, the Muslims I met there felt American. They may be against the war in Iraq, but they all thought of themselves first as Americans.”

During the immigration debate, we should enact legislation to secure our borders - three million illegal border crossings each year is totally unacceptable. Then we should maintain a legal status for the workers and students we want to come here temporarily to increase our standard of living and to export our values. But we should not complete work on a comprehensive immigration law without remembering why we have made E Pluribus Unum our national motto. We are proud of where we come from, but prouder of where we are. We are Americans. I believe that all Americans should speak our language, know our history, and know our way of government. That is the most important subject for an immigration debate, and comprehensive reform will not be complete without it. It is more important today than ever to help prospective citizens become Americans.