Culture can not be respected in fact. Even if people wish to do so.
The problem is that the thing is a moving target. When a lot of still alive people where born 'culture' was: 'a black woman was not supossed to sit in the best places of a bus', 'the children roam free with their friends and dogs and can go everywhere' and 'Is acceptable if I slap my wife in the face sometimes because I feel frustrated for the work'. Yes, this was a small part of the tradition not so long time ago.
Each generation have been educated in a different point of view about what was acceptable or not. What 'culture' should be honored for newcomers?. West coast 1966? Sometimes 'culture' is just plain wrong and should not be respected.
That's cherry picking. I'm talking about cultural basics like learning the country's history, learning the laws and the Constitution, free market capitalism, etc.
Just having an immigration system that is followed legally would be a lesson in culture that we've currently abandoned for political purposes.
Lets say there are lot of would-be-immigrants willing to respect the culture of prospective host country, become "American person", "NZ person" etc... (this doesn't necessary mean assimilation), but they are denied to do so. We need to fix this.
I agree with you, but unfortunately, the real problem with immigration is that it's a war between traditional views that value the indigenous culture vs multicultural forces that consider the host culture to be irrelevant.
Poor souls like the author of this article are caught in the middle. They don't have representatives in the traditional views camp and the multicultural views camp considers them to be secondary since they're not as likely a voting block once they come in.
That's a huge and unfounded assumption, though.