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English should be the official language of the United States for the welfare of the citizens, to create unity, and to preserve the heritage of the country.
There are over 322 different languages spoken in the United States (Census, 2000). English is the most dominant language spoken by 92% of the population. Thirty individual states of the United States have made English the official language, yet the United States as a whole, has not (U.S. English, 2008).
When the Founding Fathers of the United States sat down to sign the Constitution they read it in one language, English. The government did not print additional versions in other languages. In 1919, Theodore Roosevelt stated the following to the President of The American Defense Society, “We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birth-place or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.”
Today the government spends approximately 3.3 billion taxpayer dollars each year to provide services to non-English-speaking people in their first or only language. This is because of the Executive order that President William J. Clinton signed into law on August 11, 2000, Executive Order 13166. With that act, the federal...