Britain might deport Muslim women who fail an English test. As a Muslim, I actually support that

Under current immigration rules, spouses coming to Britain must show basic fluency in English before they arrive. On Monday, Prime Minister David Cameron said such immigrants must prove they’re continuing to learn English, or could be deported

There’s a rub: The proposal focuses on Muslim women.

Outrageous, his targeting one group, right? This might surprise you, but I’m an American Muslim whose parents immigrated to this country after a few years in the United Kingdom, and I’m on board.  The policy would be good for Britain, great for Britain’s Muslims and terrible for the far right.  What’s not to like?

On the American far right, Donald Trump has seen his support surge with calls for blanket evictions of large numbers of Americans, and he’s even gone so far as to challenge the idea of birthright citizenship altogether.

Following a series of sexual assaults on women in Germany that authorities said some Middle East refugees were involved in, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argued that all able-bodied refugee men should be deported from Germany. This left me wondering: Should we put them on planes or trains?

Unlike Trump and Douthat, Cameron actually cares about the people he’s threatening to remove.  Cameron has called for $28.5 million to push this initiative. He’s going to actively invest in communities to make them smarter, give them a leg up on jobs and education and help them become that much more politically successful and economically mobile.

But isn’t it, you ask, potentially heartless to rip up someone’s family just because they can’t learn a second, third or even fourth language?  At a time when many Britons have trouble with the one language they’re born speaking, forcing Muslims to become more educated, and weeding out the lesser-educated ones, might sound like eugenics, except it’s not clear who’s supposed to be the master race.

What better way to help Muslims enter society, succeed in government, and communicate their ideas more effectively, than to help them communicate in the first place! It’s almost too good to be true, unless… could Cameron be a “closet Muslim,” like President Obama? If I were an anti-Muslim bigot, I might be suspicious. - Read More at the Washingtonpost

Britain might deport Muslim women who fail an English test. As a Muslim, I actually support that