Obama says it's OK to ask immigrants to learn English

Former President Barack Obama recently suggested “it’s not racist” to say immigrants in the U.S. should learn English.

“Should we want to encourage newcomers to learn the language of the country that are moving to? Of course. Does that mean that they can never use their own language? No. Of course that doesn’t mean that,” Obama stated at a recent town hall held in Berlin, Germany.

“It’s not racist to say if you’re going to be here, then you should learn the language of the country that you just arrived at, because we need to have some sort of common language in which all of us can work and learn and understand each other,” Obama continued.

Some used that comment to criticize what they see as Democrats’ transformation into a party opposed to immigration enforcement.

Among them was conservative commentator Michael Knowles, who wrote in an op-ed published by Fox News on Thursday: “Obama’s concerns over security, assimilation, and fairness fall on deaf ears among Democrats today…Many have gone so far as to condemn physical border barriers as ‘ineffective and immoral’…Democrats have become the party of open borders.”