Thread: EDITORIAL: Driving Without English

Driving Without English

New York Times
November 3, 2009

Police officers giving drivers $204 tickets for not speaking English? It sounds like a rejected Monty Python sketch.

Except the grim reality is that it has happened at least 39 times in Dallas since January 2007, according to The Dallas Morning News.

At least six officers in several different patrol divisions wrote the tickets, each time citing a driver for violating a law that does not exist. All but one of the drivers were Hispanic.

The authorities say they are investigating, though one possible explanation has been offered by the police department.

The officers may have been confused by their squad-car computers’ drop-down menu of infractions, which displayed a federal statute on English proficiency that applies to commercial drivers.

The Dallas Police Department does not enforce that statute.

Whatever we learn, it is likely to be highly embarrassing to the Dallas authorities, who have promised to refund the fines to the drivers who have already paid up.

This is a country that has repeatedly gone overboard in its reaction to immigrants who don’t speak the common tongue, but the mind still reels at this one.

Where were these officers’ supervisors, who presumably reviewed and approved each of these tickets after they were filed?

Where were the judges who must have encountered these language offenders in traffic court?

The noxious practice was exposed and stopped only last month after one driver, Ernestina Mondragon, responded to her ticket with defiance and a lawyer.

The embarrassment is not just a problem for the Dallas Police Department. The country is in the middle of a fierce debate over how local police departments should deal with recent immigrants.

Many but not all of them are here illegally but have otherwise committed no crimes.

On one side are the Obama administration and the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, who firmly believe in outsourcing immigration enforcement to local police departments. On the other side are the considerable ranks of police chiefs and law-enforcement experts across the country who say there is no good reason for turning cops into immigration agents.

There is no question that the efforts to do so have been marred by poor training, racial profiling and other abuses — and widespread fear in the communities that the police are sworn to protect. If there is any remaining doubt, just take a look at what happened in Dallas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/opini ... .html?_r=1

They were stopped for no other reason? Witch, please!

I didn't know cars carried signs saying "I don't speak English, gimme a ticket!"? How would the cop know who can or can't speak English when they stop the car? That defiant idiotic woman better pay her fine like the rest of us, then sit down and shut her piehole!

miguelina wrote: "That defiant idiotic woman better pay her fine like the rest of us, then sit down and shut her piehole!"


LMAO!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! OMG... I have tears in my eyes from laughing so hard!!! Thank you for the morning laugh!!!

As a resident of this area who also lived in the N.E., I know that events in Dallas ordinarily are beneath the notice of the NYT. They must look far and wide to find these "shocking examples" (?) of so-called "civil rights abuses" to editorialize about.

The Nuevo York Times is owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.