USCIS Task Force on New Americans releases "Building an Americanization Movement for the Twenty-first Century"

In 2006, George W Bush tasked the USCIS with creating a Task Force on New Americans to spend a lot of time and effort looking into assimilation of immigrants and related topics. Now, they're released their final report, "Building an Americanization Movement for the Twenty-first Century" (summary link, PDF available in the sidebar at that page).

It's 65 pages, so a full treatment won't be offered. However:

1. Page 6 says:

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that America will be a nation of minorities without a dominant racial or ethnic group by 2042. By mid-century, whites, 67 percent of the population in 2005, will comprise roughly 47 percent, with Hispanics at 29 percent, blacks at 13 percent, and Asians at 9 percent... Recognizing the early trends, the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform in 1997 called for a modern-day Americanization movement that would uphold American unity through a shared understanding and practice of the values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, as well as emphasis on communication in a common language.

In other words, they came up with a quite possibly ineffective solution to a side-effect of their policies.

2. While some of the "Participating Individuals and Organizations" include those on our side, others are not and include Tamar Jacoby of ImmigrationWorks USA, various people from the Migration Policy Institute, someone from the National Immigration Forum, and someone from the Mexican government-linked NALEO.

They even consulted with Michelle Waslin when she was with the National Council of La Raza (she's now with the NIF). Here's a 2006 quote from her:

"while (a Lamar Alexander report relating to amnesty) doesn't overtly mention assimilation, it is very strong on the patriotism and traditional american [sic] values language in a way which is potentially dangerous to our communities."

3. Another ironic participant was Jose Luis Gutierrez from the State of Illinois Office of New Americans Policy and Advocacy. He's an aide to Rod Blagojevich, and that office (immigrants.illinois.gov/NewAmericans.htm) was started in cooperation with the Mexican government-linked Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

4. The report uses various weasly left-wing phrases along the lines of diversity being strength and so forth.

If anyone sees anything worthy of greater discussion in the report, leave a comment.

UPDATE: Eunice Moscoso offers this:

(Alfonso Aguilar, head of the U.S. Office of Citizenship) said the report is not recommending "an ugly, English-only approach," but "a friendly, pro-active literary effort." ...The task force also recommends that every state create a "state integration counsel" comprised of state and local government officials, businesses, faith-based organizations, civic organizations, and nonprofit groups that work with immigrant communities...

In practice, that means groups that are far-left, interested in little more than racial power, linked to the Mexican government, or some combination thereof.

UPDATE 2: Stephen Wall of the San Bernardino Sun has a report here, including an uncharacteristicly non-extremist quote from Armando Navarro where he simply praises multiculturalism and demographic change. However:

"It's total nonsense," (Elsa Valdez, a sociology professor at Cal State San Bernardino) said. "We have had immigrants coming for over 200 years. America as a country has never become Balkanized, and we haven't had a civil war with different groups fighting each other. The only reason you have enclaves or segregated communities is we haven't done a very good job integrating the different immigrant groups economically and socially in terms of jobs, health care and education."

Sun, 12/21/2008 - 16:58 · Importance: 6