Tom Tancredo: “the point the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) brings up about bilingual education is an extremely important…”

“the point the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) brings up about bilingual education is an extremely important point. I hope people understood and heard what he said, about not only the willingness of people of the State of California to eliminate it, but a large, a significant number of a part of that population that voted to eliminate it were Hispanics themselves. Because most of the people that come here from Mexico or anywhere else, they come here as poor people looking for a better life. They understand one thing very clearly; that is, in order to get that good life for themselves and for their children, they need to speak English. They do not want their children in these bilingual classes. It is this educational elite that wants to force these children in. Well, there are a lot of interesting reasons. Some are political, some are cultural. But we passed in the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and in the education bill that we passed out of this House just a short time ago, we included a provision for bilingual education that, for the first time, will require parental approval, not just notification, but a parent has to give their approval, an affirmative statement that they want their children in a bilingual classroom. One cannot imagine how that was looked upon by the other members of the committee, by members on the other side of the aisle especially. It was fought tooth and nail.”