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“This Is Not Mexico”: Texas Official Blasts Judge for Speaking Spanish

HeadlineMar 28, 2019

In Texas, a Houston-area county official is under fire after he criticized a judge for speaking Spanish on television. On March 25, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo was giving updates in both English and Spanish about a chemical fire that was burning at a petrochemical plant in the Houston suburb of Deer Park. The press conference was carried live on the Facebook page of Houston’s CBS affiliate KHOU, where Mark Tice, a Chambers County commissioner, posted the comment, “She is a joke. English this is not Mexico.” Following a public uproar, Tice later apologized. Census data show Harris County is 43 percent Latino, and nearly half of its residents speak a language other than English at home.

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