Immigrants Refuse to Learn English, Demand Taxpayers Pay for Translation

New York City is being sued for failing to adequately comply with a 2003 law which forces the city to pay for translation services for non-English speaking residents.

A 2003 city law, the Equal Access to Human Services Act [pdf], passed after initial resistance from the Bloomberg administration,, gave city agencies five years to phase in comprehensive translation services, supplied by phone or in person. In addition, it required that city forms had to be made available in six main languages: Arabic, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian and Spanish. The deadline was February 2009.

(In addition to the 2003 city law, a number of other legal regulations — including the city’s Human Rights Law, the state’s social services regulations, and internal agency policies — can be read to require translation services.)

Naturally, the lawsuit against New York is being brought by an "advocacy group," Legal Services NYC, on behalf of the immigrants. In politically correct parlance, an "advocacy group" means a band of left-wing, fellow travellers whose hatred for the United States, its people, culture and customs, compels them to use the legal system to undermine the republic in any way possible. Usually with great success.

Once upon a time, immigrants - people who willing chose to move to this country - were expected to learn English, abandon the customs of their homeland, and assimilate themselves into the culture of their new nation. In short, to become Americans. But the fellow travellers at Legal Services NYC don't want the immigrants named in the suit to do that. They want them to retain their non-American identities, and to never assimilate. Why? Because the more unassimilated aliens there are in the U.S., the weaker native American culture becomes. That is the ultimate goal of "advocacy groups" on the left: the weakening, by any means necessary, of the American identity, and then by consequence, of America itself.

Note also that the immigrants in question are suiing for language translation not to find employment or vote or do anything productive. They are suiing for translation services so as to better access welfare benefits, something previous generations of immigrants were never granted access to in any language.

The six plaintiffs named in the lawsuit are Hawa Boureima, an immigrant from Niger who speaks Soninke; Mercedes Cruz, Reyita Rivera and Martha Rodriguez, who speak Spanish; Xiao Dan Guan, who speaks Mandarin Chinese; and Meksheng Kwong, who speaks Cantonese Chinese.

Ms. Kwong, a mother of three who is described in the suit as a victim of domestic violence, has to visit the Human Resources Administration every two months to obtain recertification for her benefits, which include welfare, food stamps and Medicaid. However, at least twice, her benefits were cut off because of language barriers, once because the agency said she missed her appointment even though she had been told to wait in the hallway. “I have three kids. I really need benefits,” she said through a translator at a press conference on Tuesday morning.

So, American taxpayers, who were never directly consulted when Congress opened the nation's borders to the Third World in 1965, are now forced to pay for language translation services - even though these immigrants voluntarily chose to come to the English-speaking U.S, - all so that the same taxpayers can then pay for their welfare benefits.

Isn't that just wonderful? No wonder the Chinese laugh at us.