Tag Archive for: illegal aliens

English WINS in Florida Court

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The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an earlier ruling from the U.S. District Court that product manufacturers and distributors are not obligated to provide warnings in languages other than English. The ruling applies to both assembly instructions and manuals for consumer products. This is the second victory for English in the courts in the past few months. The Arizona Supreme Court recently defended English proficiency as a requirement to run for public office.

This new ruling stems from a 2009 incident when a Florida resident who understands only Spanish bought two propane heaters from Home Depot in Miami. The woman mistakenly used the heaters indoors, even though they were outdoor-only heaters, and the resulting fire caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to her home.

The woman sued both the manufacturers of the heaters as well as Home Depot claiming they were liable since the safety and assembly instructions on the heaters were provided not in Spanish, but only in English.

Subsequently in 2010, the U.S. District Court ruled that the woman exhibited “willful ignorance” in assembling the products without understanding the instructions and neglecting to seek additional assistance, and just last week, the Eleventh Circuit concurred that the English-only safety warnings were adequate and noted that even though the woman did not speak English, the pictures on the instructions were perfectly clear.

The English Language Unity (ELU) act has been introduced in Congress – S. 503 and H.R. 997. The English language advocacy group Pro-English supports the ELU act.

Rubio supports cleansing Florida voter rolls

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Florida Senator Marco Rubio stated unequivocally, “I wouldn’t characterize it as an effort to purge Latinos from the voting rolls.” At a Bloomberg News breakfast today, June 14th, Senator Rubio went on to say, “I would characterize it as twofold. No. 1 is, I think there’s the goal of ensuring that everyone who votes in Florida is qualified to vote. If you’re not a citizen of the United States, you shouldn’t be voting. That’s the law. And, I mean — I mean, what’s the counter to that, that we’re willing to tolerate 100 illegal voters on our rolls? So I do think that — I mean, why — how could anyone argue against a state identifying people who are not rightfully on the voter rolls and removing them from the voter rolls? They shouldn’t be voting.”

The Department of Justice letter to Governor Scott reads:

… Your June 6 response has provided no information that allows us to change our view that the State’s new list maintenance program for verification of citizen is a “program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official list of eligible voters,” and that this program is being conducted within the 90-day quiet period established by the (National Voter Registration Act). Likewise, you have provided no information indicating that the program fits within any of the statutory exceptions for programs that may be conducted within that quiet period.

Instead, it appears that Florida has initiated a new program for system voter removal, which may ultimately target more than 180,000 registered voters …

… In these circumstances, continuing with any future mailings on this basis during the 90-day quiet period, or removing persons form the voter registration list for failing to respond to the State’s inquiries to date, violate Section 8 of the NVRA. Please immediately cease this unlawful conduct.

According to John Fund and Quin Hillyer, both Senior Editors at American Spectator, there is no 90-day quiet period in the NVRA for purging illegal voters from the rolls. According to Quin Hillyer, who helps craft Section 8 of the NVRA, it requires Florida to do what it is doing now. Section 8 was put in place to insure voter rolls were maintained in proper order with only legal voters on it.

Senator Rubio noted, “What is the argument in favor of leaving people on the rolls that aren’t qualified to vote in the United States?”