Those Dangerous American Values. Maybe Someone Should Fly The Mexican Flag Outside The U.S. Capitol.

A Hill rat just passed along an alert that went out from the D.C. office of La Raza today warning its allies about the Alexander citizenship bill, S. 1815.

But first. Here’s Senator Alexander talking about the bill on the Senate floor:

Joined by Senators Cornyn, Isakson, Cochran, and Santorum, I have introduced S. 1815, the Strengthening American Citizenship Act, that is indispensable to any comprehensive immigration bill. This legislation, that I plan to offer as an amendment at the appropriate time during this debate, would help legal immigrants who are embarked on a path toward citizenship to learn our common language, our history and our way of government by:

• providing them with $500 grants for English courses;

• allowing those who become fluent in English to apply for citizenship one year early (that is, after four years instead of five);

• providing grants to organizations to offer courses in American history and civics;

• authorizing a new foundation to assist in these efforts;

• codifying the Oath of Allegiance which new citizens swear when they are naturalized;

• asking the Homeland Security Department to carry out a strategy to highlight the ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens; and

• establishing an award to recognize the contributions of outstanding new American citizens.

Now to La Raza’s concerns. Among them, in the e-mail I’m looking at, the La Raza staffer warns: “while it doesn’t overtly mention assimilation, it is very strong on the patriotism and traditional american values language in a way which is potentially dangerous to our communities.”

So, “patriotism and [A]merican values”—by which I’ll assume they mean, say, learning English and knowing basic history–are “potentially dangerous” to Hispanics?