No, DFU -- You Are Not in the Tijuana Department of Motor Vehicles

dfu on the scene | 8-14-03 | dfu

[doug from upland]

Yesterday was a hectic and interesting day. The night before, I couldn't find my wallet and couldn't find it the next morning. Fortunately, I only had two cards it and cancelled them right away. The bigger problem was replacing my driver's license at the Deartment of Motor Vehicles.

I'll be off to Hawaii in a few weeks, so I couldn't delay replacing my license. It was an interesting adventure that lasted over an hour and a half.

At the DMV, I felt totally out of place. I looked around, heard people talking, and felt like I was in Tijuana. Many of the conversations I heard were not in English. At the reception desk, most of the conversations were not in English.

I am afraid we have lost California. Cruz Bustamante was right that Mexico is going to take it back one door at a time. Our culture has changed dramatically, and the damage to the economy with poor third worlders coming in and sucking up benefits is unprecedented.

This election in California is more critical than the rest of the nation realizes. We have to stop the flood into Calfornia, then perhaps it could stop in the rest of the nation.

I'm not optimistic because of the hold the "undocumented worker" groups have on the DemocRATic Party. Art Torres, head RAT in California, is a loud mouth defender of those who come here illegally. Every RAT liberal panders to them.

No, folks, I'm not a Mexican basher. We welcome people here who wait their turn in line to embrace America and create a good life for their families. The invasion we are experiencing is destroying our country as surely as the Roman Empire was destroyed.

Oh, yes. I found my wallet a short time ago.

[Phantom Lord]

You can't replace a lost license online? Even here in NC you can do that.

And an hour and a half at the DMV is nothing. I just had my birthday 2 weeks ago and my license expired that day. I spent 3 HOURS at the DMV, after spending an hour there earlier in the day only to have their "system" go down and have to leave to return later that day.

[GunsareOK]

The situation, at the DMV and otherwise, is the same here in Arlington (or as a buddy pronounces it, ArlingTONE) VA. The place is turning into Central America north.

[FormerLib]

Sorry Doug, but after having spent the past few months in California, I don't think losing it to Mexico would be a bad thing.

[Gabz]

You're the second person this week to have said the same thing about DMV in northern VA.

I guess all the illegals over here on the eastern shore don't bother with DMV, because neither my husband nor I have encountered any of those problems and we've had to go to DMV several times over the past couple of months in order to switch licenses and tags since our move here from Delaware.

[BenLurkin]

About ten years ago I was in line at the DMV waiting while a clerk quizzed a spanish speaking gentleman about a card showing sample regulatory and warning signs.

"No," she said pointing to a stop sign with a slight shake of her head,"You have to know this one. It's 'Stop" . . .'halto'."

Then she sent him back to the desks with a drivers manual written in Spanish.

[warchild9]

You can thank Saint W for keeping our borders wide open. The Romans knew this trick, too: conquest by colonization. It's peaceful, and insidious. Kiss our culture goodbye.

[new cruelty]

At the reception desk, most of the conversations were not in English.

I spent 6 hours (in 2 visits) at the NJ DMV trying to get my license. It's a painful memory, but I did get one huge laugh out of it.

While waiting in line, I heard one of the clerks tell this guy that he would have to fill out additional forms since he had just moved from a foriegn country.

Perplexed, the guy replied that he had just moved from New Mexico.

The clerk stood firm, and slowly mouthed out, "NEW MEXICO, that is a foriegn country, sir". Several people within earshot busted out in laughter.

[DoctorMichael]

{Said to the sounds of millions of rhythmically squeaking bedsprings in Tijuana and Oaxaca}................

Nowhere to run; Nowhere to hide.

[B Knotts]

If President Bush would simply enforce our immigration laws, and deport all illegal aliens (by forcing the cooperation of local police), you would see a marked change in California, culturally, linguistically and criminally.

[Inspectorette]

doug, three little letters for you: AAA. We've belonged to the Auto Club of Southern California for years, and it's a godsend, well worth the membership fee, just to be able to avoid the DMV. (And they ALL speak English ;-)

[doug from upland]

I've been a member for years so have seldom had to go to the stinking DMV. Unfortunately, they cannot handle drivers licenses.

[eno_]

I am a mainstream Republican with small-l libertarian tendencies.

I voted for Bush.

I'm for free trade.

I'm even for liberal immigration laws, and I think we gained a lot by importing many of the best brains from Russia, China, India and other places.

But the huge extent of illegal immigration makes no sense to me. It raises already outrageous health care costs and costs of many social programs. It fills our prisons. It raises asset costs, like housing, at the low end of the market, and that hurts our poor people.

It's a loser politically. This is where illegal voters come from, by the hundreds of thousands. If they were granted amnesty, it would be a further windfall for Democrats. Illegals stuff older cities that are run by corrupt Democrat administrations. People fled those cities for a reason and now they are propped up by illegals.

And what is the benefit? If it was a good deal somehow I'd be sympathetic. But how? Legal immigration can keep us out of a Social Security crunch, if that's the problem. Do we have that many manufacturing jobs that need low-skill immigrants? And do we so much want to keep the slaughterhouse jobs?

The whole thing feels like some sub-rosa social experiment foisted on us, and I don't like it.

[Spiff]

Time to leave that Sinkhole de Mayo called California before its too late - it's become a third world country.

[wjcsux]

I found the best thing to do is go to the DMV approximately 15 minutes before they close. Its amazing how quickly they process paperwork right before closing time!

[.38sw]

When I first moved to California from Idaho in 1990, I went to the DMV in Fresno to get a driver's manual to study before taking the test to get my Cal. driver's license. Guess what? They didn't have a single copy in ENGLISH. Not one. They had spanish, korean, Cambodian, Chinese and I don't know what all else, but no English. I was appalled. If I'd been smart, I'd have turned around and went back to Idaho.

I had to call the DMV in Sacramento and have them mail me a copy in English. Talk about culture shock...

[Nea Wood]

This fellow Californian agrees with you 1,000%.

[Sloth]

It's not just California. I went to a county health department in Bentonville, Arkansas a few years ago, to interview for a job. Women with tons of kids all over the place, and hardly an English word to be heard.

BTW, I recently moved to Alabama and had to go get a new driver's license. The way it was set up, you took a number out of a dispenser and waited for them to call you into another room. I first tried to do this during my lunch hour, but there was NO way they were going to get to me in time.

So I gave up that day, but on another day I dropped in at 10 AM or so, ran in through all these people waiting, grabbed a number and left. Came back at lunch and they still hadn't called my number yet, but I only had to wait about 15 more minutes.