In the United States, the language battles often are framed in the rhetoric immigrant-bashing. No sense helping those people, seems to be the refrain. If they want to live here, they must learn English. Yes, they must. For older immigrants learning English, accents can be heavy for life.
Accents turn off some native-English speakers.
There are people who use their native tongue, be it Spanish or Vietnamese or Russian, as I have heard in stores in Central Florida, perhaps to gossip about others around them. But most of the time, people are simply speaking in the language they feel most comfortable using among each other. The misguided drive for English-only laws. Arizona voters narrowly approved one sweeping initiative that barred Arizona state workers from using any language other than English while on the job or while performing official duties. The law even provides for penalties for violators.