Massachusetts Mayor can’t understand English | Eastern NC Now

DePena requested that his personal assistant act as a translator during the proceedings, which the judge overseeing the hearing denied due to concerns that the staffer had not been independently verified. Because the judge and opposing counsel do not speak Spanish, it was determined that mistranslations could negatively affect the case, either intentionally or unintentionally, per The Post Millennial.

The incident occurred during a Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission and quickly went viral. It’s been revealed that DePena hails from the Dominican Republic and immigrated to New York in the early 1980s before moving to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1989. 

https://www.dailywire.com/news/massachusetts-mayor-cant-understand-english-needs-translator-in-court

“If you can’t speak English, you shouldn’t even be eligible for citizenship, much less public office,” a third commenter wrote. “How are you supposed to represent Americans if you can’t even understand our language?”

Per census data, Lawrence, Massachusetts, is over 82% Hispanic. 

This is a huge issue that people are not learning English it should be a requirement for citizenship that people be fluent in English.