Everone knows that Cuban immigrants are conservative patriots - but, as often happens in the immigration debate, what Everyone Knows may not be true.

Speaking to delegates during lunch yesterday, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida Republican and a Cuban immigrant, urged them to help preserve Spanish.

"It is important that we emphasize the Spanish language and that we keep the Spanish language, and that we transmit that emphasis to our children and our grandchildren," he said.

Hispanic group aims to stop 'wave of hate', by Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, July 22 2007.

Diaz-Balart was speaking (why?) to the annual conference of La Raza, held (of course) in Miami, Occupied America.

By calling for Spanish to be spoken by immigrants' children and grandchildren, Diaz-Balart is in effect calling for permanent Spanish-language enclaves. Quite apart from the obvious madness of encouraging such enclaves when the U.S. has a revanchist Spanish-speaking neighbor, this would also materially disadvantage monolingual Americans, because of the inevitable pressure to hire Spanish-speaking staff.

What is Diaz-Balart doing in the U.S anyway? More immediately, what is he doing in the Republican party - supposedly the vehicle of conservative patriots? (That's American patriots). Why doesn't House Minority Leader John Boehner expel him from the GOP caucus?

Hint: imagine what would have happened if Diaz-Balart had called for segregation!

Oh - he just did.