Opinion | Why the White House’s John Kelly fails English and history with his views on immigrants

“They don't speak English … They don't integrate well.” This is how John Kelly, Donald Trump's chief of staff, described his reasons for the need to block Mexican immigrants from coming into the United States. Kelly's great-grandparents came from Ireland but on his mother's side they hailed from Avellino, Italy. Little is known about their linguistic abilities, yet some research reveals that his great-grandmother knew no English after 30 years of living in the US. 

In reality, learning a language may be easy for some people but a number of obstacles may make it difficult if not impossible for others. The first one is age. Although immigrant children learn English like natives, as “Dreamers” (undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children) have done, those who come as adults will learn enough to get by. Some may never learn English because of low educational background and weak knowledge of their own language.