DWE: Driving Without English

Dallas Police have been issuing tickets to drivers — not for breaking any traffic law, but for not speaking English. Now granted, they had to be pulled over for some other reason before the officer realized they could not speak English. But then the officers issued 2 tickets: 1 for the traffic violation and a 2nd one for not speaking English proficiently. The New York Times is denouncing it as the latest insult to injury provided to illegal immigrants.

The first point is, it is NOT against the law to drive without being able to speak English. They were mistaken. It must have caught on like wildfire, because over 200 tickets were issued until one woman finally decided to get a lawyer and challenge it. Of course, what do you do as an illegal immigrant? You have a right to a lawyer, but you’re not going to draw attention to your position of being here illegally by challenging the practice. The police say they got confused because of some statute that dropped down on their laptop menu, which applied to COMMERCIAL drivers only. But even that statute is not enforced. Somebody started it, and it caught on like hotcakes and was not challenged by other officers, administrative personnel reading their police reports, court room judges listening to their stories in court, OR those recv’g the tickets. These facts also highlight the fact that people are sheep. Nobody wants to challenge their peers, especially those in law enforcement or the military,  and we all just go along with standard practice. We blindly follow those who go before us.

What human rights do we believe in? Citizens’ rights vs. human rights. I think with the illegal immigrant issue, that’s what it comes down to.

Do we stop educating children of illegal immigrants, refuse them entry into school? CA voters had a referendum on this and said yes. However, it proved impossible to enforce.

Do we refuse them health care? Access to services? Think in terms of pregant mothers, whose children, when they are born in America, are Americans. Do we refuse the mothers health care, raising their chances of being born with defects and problems, requiring longer hospitalization time and more care afterwards? Just how far do we go with this?

These people are not criminals, they are not breaking the law except for one. They came in without waiting the years it would take to enter legally. We cannot realistically keep them all out. There are too many literal holes in our “fences” along the border. We can’t send them all home either. There are millions of them and they have fit right into our labor market like a glove on a hand. Businesses get off paying them cheap. They usually don’t take jobs that carry benefits and health insurance. If we forced all illegal immigrants to leave America tomorrow, our business world would collapse. They know it. They just don’t talk about it publically.

Many Hispanics in America are LEGAL. We annexed in about 1/3 of Mexico as a country, with the Treaty of Guadalupe at the end of the Mexican-American war. Most of CA, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and other states were Mexico. They speak Spanish because they were Mexicans living in their country, and then found themselves annexed into America.

There are many other Hispanic groups in America, from Central and South American, to Cubans, the most assisted group to immigrate into America in our history. They were provided money and jobs, when they left Castro’s Cuba and today, you have to speak Spanish to live in Miami.

American tourists in France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and many other countries drive cars and cannot read the road signs. It’s a little more difficult to figure out where you are, but it’s not illegal.

It is a complicated issue. What’s the answer? Well it certainly is not the answer to issue tickets for laws that do not exist. That, we call discrimination.

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