By Tony Dolz
November 18th 2007

I applaud presidential candidate Tom Tancredo of Colorado.  His actions and his loyalty to our country do not need translation. 

On December 9^th all Republican presidential candidates, save Tom Tancredo, will clumsily pander both to non-English-speaking couch potatoes who do not have the right to vote because they are in this country illegally; or perhaps even more sadly, to Hispanic naturalized citizens with the right to vote, who after taking an oath to willingly integrate into our society, refuse to do so.

My name is Tony Dolz.  I am a Cuban-born Hispanic immigrant and proud naturalized United States citizen.  I am married to a foreign-born immigrant.  As an immigrant family with a sizeable circle of immigrant business partners, colleagues and friends, we celebrate legal and sustainable immigration.

It may not be common knowledge about our immigration laws, but as a precondition of becoming a naturalized citizen, one has to prove that one is conversant in American history, our form of government, and our heritage; and one has to have a basic command of the English language.  It is also the law that as a condition of becoming a naturalized citizen one has to renounce any alliance to any foreign government or nation.  In addition, the new citizen must swear to support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  Suffice it to say that title 8, section 1324 and 1325 of the Code of Federal Regulations makes it a crime to enter the United States illegally and to aid and abet illegal aliens.  The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 makes it illegal to employ illegal aliens.  No new citizens can support or assist aliens who violate our borders, work illegally or employ workers illegally without violating their oath of citizenship.

Imagine how inappropriate it would be if someone came to the naturalization swearing-in ceremony waving a foreign flag or boasting of nationalistic pride for his or her previous country of origin.  This would be a slap in the face of the people of the United States, the most immigrant-welcoming nation in the world.

Just as inappropriate, I thought, was the participation of all Democrat presidential candidates in a presidential debate conducted in Spanish by Univision in September of 2006.  Univision is a Spanish-only television network that beams its foreign cultural programming to over two million viewers in the United States.  

Some critics, like the popular governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, see people glued to foreign language television as resisting integration into American culture.  Schwarzenegger was born in Austria and after trying very hard to become a model American, he credits his desire to integrate as an important part of his success in his career and political life.

Only United States citizens or naturalized citizens have the right to vote. The day that I took my oath as a new citizen I gained a cherished right – the right to vote.  So let’s be clear about this: no one who claims to have the right to vote on account of being a naturalized citizen can protest that they do not know English, because knowing English is a prerequisite of earning citizenship.

History is about to repeat itself.  On December 9^th all Republican candidates, except the principled Tom Tancredo, will debase themselves campaigning not as candidates who want to represent all Americans but instead as candidates who want to pander to a mosaic of non-English speaking enclaves.  These are candidates willing to put America on a path to Balkanization and eventually to irrelevance.

I am a candidate for California’s 30^th the U.S. Congressional District and although I am Hispanic, I would not accept a Spanish-only invitation to debate my opponent Henry Waxman.

Cynics claim that the bottom-feeding Republican politicians who accepted the invitation will in fact get votes for the efforts.  The reason is a dirty little secret.  Thanks to the Motor Voter Act of 1993, illegal aliens who are given the privilege to get a driver’s license, as it is possible in eight states of the union, are automatically allowed to register to vote.  Federal law prohibits a person registered to vote, legally or illegally, from being challenged at the voting booth on Election Day.  The result, as apparently was the intention with the Democrat Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer’s plan to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens, is massive voter fraud.  Would you vote for a presidential candidate who secretly aspires to score votes cast by illegal aliens fraudulently registered to vote?  There is one presidential candidate who stands apart and he is Tom Tancredo.

http://www.dolz.com

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