Earlier this month, Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama introduced the Understanding Basic English Requirements Act. It states that every driver in a ridesharing company must speak sufficient English and have a valid driver’s license. The bill would allow the government to withhold contracts from ridesharing companies if they do not comply with the bill’s requirements.
On its face, this bill is not particularly restrictive. After all, Uber already requires valid licenses and does detailed background checks for all drivers they contract. However, it becomes clear that this bill is primarily meant to target migrants, based on how frequently Tuberville’s public statements reference those who entered the country without legal permission.
For instance, on his website he makes the unsubstantiated claim that too many Americans are regularly “killed by illegal immigrants” in car accidents. He repeatedly makes bizarre claims similar to this, once insinuating immigrants cannot understand stop signs. There are no statistics cited to back up any of his inflammatory rhetoric.
It is hard to find data on fatal car crashes involving this population, because it is not collected in incident reports. Two of the few studies that mention undocumented immigrants indicate that contrary to Tuberville’s claims, they have less risky driving behavior. However, a few studies have found that they do not increase drunk driving deaths, matching data that has found they are also less likely to commit crimes.
The total disregard for presenting facts paired with dehumanizing language has become a hallmark of the Republican party’s anti-immigration campaign. It should come as no surprise Tuberville continues this trend.
The bill would do little to stop undocumented rideshare drivers. Uber and other major companies require drivers to submit their Social Security number before working. English tests would hardly be a deterrent to instances of fraud attempting to bypass the system.
But more importantly, language doesn’t matter that much for a driver’s license. The fact that the DMV offers testing in multiple languages should indicate that there isn’t increased risk. Road sign imagery is standardized for a reason.
All things considered, this will not do much to make ridesharing safer. It seems that one of the few effects it will have is the punishment of people who do not have a sufficient grasp on the English language. This idea is reinforced by the first part of his statement: “America is an English-speaking country.”
Again, this is in lockstep with the rhetoric of the current administration. Trump signed an executive order earlier this year making English the official language of the United States. The executive order also eliminated the requirement for federal agencies to assist citizens with limited English proficiency, hindering tax-paying citizens from accessing the very services they pay for.
These recent changes to restrict people’s abilities based on English proficiency are eerily similar to historical efforts to crackdown on immigrants for the same. Minority languages and dialects have been consistently repressed in the United States as a way to target immigrant communities who existed outside of the predominant culture.
One of the more prominent waves was during the World Wars, where German American immigrants were viewed with increased suspicion due to the war effort. In Iowa, legislation was passed to ban the speaking of any foreign languages in public, leading to the arrests of thousands of citizens.
Much more recently, bilingual education was banned in California schools in 1998. Proposition 227 favored railroading ESL students into full English classes, even in largely Spanish speaking areas, though data has shown that bilingual education leads to better outcomes for the group surveyed, The proposition was fueled in part by a surge in anti-immigration sentiment and would not be overturned until 2016.
There are countless examples of similar legislation, from English literacy voting requirements to the recent Supreme Court decision that permits ICE profiling based on language, race and employment. In almost every case, this legislation has limited the freedoms of citizens. Tuberville’s UBER Act, if passed, will be one more entry in the long tradition of fear based bills that harm Americans.
