Call it DWE as in "Driving Without English" and instantly we have the newest traffic violation.  A 'crime' as bad as DUI in the eyes of the self-righteous 'speak English only or leave the country' crowd.

The Dallas Police issued 39 traffic tickets and the stated infraction was "non-English speaking driver".  This practice which goes beyond an isolated case of police oversight was finally challenged thanks to a Hispanic grandmother  and legal resident in the USA since 1980.

"We're looking at dereliction of duty for the officers who wrote the citation, and also dereliction of duty for the sergeants who reviewed each of these citations and allowed them to go through our system," stated Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle in his apology.

How insular has our country become? 

If it's a crime to drive and not speak English, just how are we even going to beckon foreign investment and tourism into the USA?  

The actual existing traffic violation in Texas is that a driver of "commercial vehicles" must speak English; a seemingly rational regulation, which actually belays the real intent of protecting truck drivers' union rights.   Still we must ask just how the European Union manages to have a Greek truck driver cruise through Italy, France and Germany if such "language regulation" existed there.

The Dallas chief of Police called this dogged chase not only an "embarrassment" but went further in distinctly portraying it as a "dereliction of duty"

This is yet another failed example of delegated immigration enforcement authority in this "embarrassing" Dallas episode. 

The grandmother challenger of the "Driving Without English" is Ernestina Mondragon, a legal resident of the USA for nearly three decades.    This Hispanic woman is part of the 1.7 million Hispanics that live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Texas area, constituting nearly a third of the population of that metropolitan area according to the 2008 Census American Community Survey.

America today constitutes the second largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world.  Its Hispanic population of over 45 million generates an income of over $1 trillion dollars, similar to the GDP of nations such as Canada or Mexico. 

When is America going to embrace these remarkable facts and stop madly chasing its own tail?