Spyridon - the problem with the "nation" line you have been taking is that it ignores that fact that the USA is a state, not a nation.
It is a state that has been built upon an existing native population (though "built upon" might be better expressed a phrase which expresses the violence done against them...) by repeated waves of immigration from a wide range of countries, initially the British Isles, but since then from the rest of Europe, from Africa, from Asia and from South America. As such, while there are dominant backrounds/religions/languages/customs/history, due to the dominance of immigrants from a European christian background, the state was founded in such a way that gives legitimacy to citizens from all manner of cultural backgrounds (that is, from many nations of people areound the world).
It is a similar case to my country, Australia, in many ways (the British origins, the treatment of native people, the waves of immigration from various regions of the world...). In both our cases, it is clear that English is the language of the state - it is the language used to pass laws, to communicate laws to people, it is used in our courts... it would be very hard to function in either America or Australia without knowledge of the English language.
In both cases, however, I think it is necessary that we are pragmatic and understanding about the difficulty that this poses to new immigrants. Part of my family migrated to Australia in the 1950s from Italy, and spoke no English. They worked hard, they learned the language as much as they could (they came from poor backgrounds and were coming to Australia in their 20s - it is very hard to learn a new language fluently after childhood), but they now speak English relatively well. That experience would be shared by many. It would be shared by people arriving in our countries today.
The Australian government is generally quite good at recognising the difficulties new migrants face - many government documents are published in other languages (Italian, Greek, Mandarin, Vietnamese, you name it), and in government offices the possibility for the use of an interpreter is often available. This is a recognition that the language learning process is difficult, that many people come to our multicultural country that don't know English, but also that this doesn't mean they should be prejudiced against.
So, English is the language tought in our schools, it is the discourse of public life, but we recognise the practical limitations which are imposed on a nation built on such a diverse background of immigration. I think a similar policy makes sense in a similar state, which America is. In new states like ours, states which are not based around a single nation which has existed with the same language, culture and history in the same place for millennia, but on people from a vast range of backrounds, a state which looks after its citizens should be sensitive to the issue of language and deal with it pragmatically, not by creating a second class of citizen by passing laws in relation to language as are being discussed in this thread.
