Language banning still goes on today in the form of official language laws and rulings by judges: In Amarillo, Texas, State District Judge, Samuel Kiser, ordered a bilingual Mexican-American mother (Marta Laureano) involved in a child custody dispute to refrain from speaking Spanish to her daughter.

The judge told Laureano that she was “abusing” her five-year old daughter by speaking Spanish to her and ordered Laureano to speak only English at home.

The father of the child, Timothy Garcia, who was seeking unsupervised visitation rights with his daughter, had complained that she was not proficient in English. As reported in Maclean's magazine (September 11, 1995: 13):

Excerpts from Judge Kiser's comments:

"If she starts first grade with the other children and cannot even speak the language that the teachers and others speak, and she's a full-blooded American citizen, you're abusing that child and you're relegating her to the position of housemaid. Now, get this straight: you start speaking English to that child, because if she doesn't do good [sic] in school, then I can remove her because it's not in her best interest to be ignorant. "

"You are real big about talking about what's best for your daughter, but you won't even teach a five-year-old child how to speak English. And then you expect her to go off to school and educate herself and be able to learn how to make a living. Now that is bordering on abuse."

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