America is a Nation and not a mosaic of nationalities. The various nationalities that come here are not to remain separate, but to blend into the one American nationality—the nationality of Washington and Lincoln, of Muhlenberg and Sheridan. Therefore, we must have but one language, the English language. Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country, for hereafter every immigrant should be treated as a future fellow citizen and not merely as a labor unit. English should be the only language taught or used in the primary schools. We should provide by law so that after a reasonable interval every newspaper in this country should be published in English. (April 27, 1918.) Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 143.
"Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country,"
(This isn't directed at Walter Skinner)
We aren't so desperate for warm bodies that we need to establish hopes or goals for an immigrant to meet in the future.
If someone hasn't even learned the world's common language of English before making an effort to gain our homeland and it's citizenship, then why would we even entertain the thought of allowing them in?