There it was again in the newspaper last week — a throw away line about immigration and drivers licenses in a larger article about immigration and border patrols between Mexico and Arizona. Governor Richardson of Arizona said “I have the most migrant-friendly state” as he cited a policy of issuing drivers licenses without regard to immigration status. Now, what I can’t understand is why immigration status has any thing to do with being a safe driver, which is what a driver’s license is supposed to make sure you are. If you are a pedestrian, bicyclist or even another car driver, wouldn’t you rather be concerned with how safely the driver in the lane next to you is operating their vehicle rather than whether or not they are living in the US legally? The fact that many people use their drivers license as identification has nothing to do with why drivers licenses were required in the first place.
A number of years ago, California had a ballot measure that would have denied public health services to undocumented residents. Public health workers argued and protested against implementation of the measure, I think successfully, because they realized that infectious diseases do not care whether they are being passed from legal residents or non-legal residents. Medical experts have probably never seen an infection virus that asked for legal resident documentation before settling in to cause serious illness.
Identify theft and concerns about terrorists infiltrating our country are hot topics in media today. Identify theft is one issue. But does anyone really think that a person who has come to the US to blow up a building is really worried about whether or not they have a drivers license? Besides, I’ll bet Timothy McVeigh who was a legal US citizen showed his drivers license to rent a truck before he filled it with explosives and drove to the Oklahoma City Federal Building. A drivers license does not prove that some one is unhinged.
Back to Arizona Governor Richardson and his migrant friendly policy. Checking the DMV websites of both Oregon and Arizona, both states ask for similar documentation. Proof of who you are in the form of one or two specific pieces of identification and one or two items from a secondary list of possible documents. The lists look to be the same to me. Neither list states that one must have a legal immigration status or be a US citizen in order to take the test to make sure you know how to drive safely and carry a drivers license. Makes sense to me.
24 responses to “Who Gets a Drivers License?”
“Makes sense to me”
That’s because you haven’t thought out how the illegal immigrants use those drivers licences to falsy legitimize their illegal presence and further their illegitimacy.
It’s a free ticket for every public agency to pass off the responsibility of enforcing immigration laws. While every police and public agency neglects to check legal status employers are targetted to do their job for them.
“Requiring an immigrant has a green card is no different than requiring a trucking company to make sure their truck drivers have the appropriate license”
That’s all we want the DMV to do. Ask for a green card.
Why does it make sense for employers to ask but not our government agencies which we pay to enforce the law.
“Having a drivers license doesn’t confer any special rights on anyone beyond certifying that they know how to drive.”
Wrong. Once in hand the license extends the ability to illegally gain more services and the illegally gotten jobs you talk about.
What is a employer to do when handed an Oregon driver’s license from an illegal alien?
Do what the DMV and police and other agencies refuse to do?
OK look guys. I’m currently living down here in Texas while my wife finishes up her medical residency then we plan to move back to Portland. At the public clinic where my wife works, at least 50% of the patients are illegal immigrants, mostly Mexican but a trickle form Central America. You think Portland has seen an influx of immigrants in recent years, come to Texas and see what it really looks like. My wife is from Chile but is a legal immigrant with a green card because we are married.
You know what? In the past two years since we’ve been here she’s gone from being sympathetic to these issues as a fellow Hispanic immigrant, to being absolutely against any recognition of illegal immigrants of any sort. The fraud is just unbelievable and she is asked to perpetrate it on a daily basis by “knowingly” accepting false names. Half the patients she gets are using fraudulent names. They get fraudulent SS cards and fraudulent green cards “off the street” which are used to gain employment here. Everyone knows it and employers deliberately do not look very closely. Medicaid is paying for most of their medical care because hospitals and clinics do not look very hard at IDs.
I would be OK with what you suggest if driver’s licenses were not used for ID as is the case in many other countries. In Chile, for example, everyone carries a national ID card called a Cedula. It pretty much looks like a typical US driver’s license with photo and all sorts of tamper-proof features. The driver’s license is just a cheap laminated card with your name and cedula number on it and no photo. Of course if a cop pulls you over you show him BOTH cards. Chilean Passports look pretty much like US passports except that they carry the same cedula number as your national ID so unlike the US, there is no separate passport number. The same number is used for everything.
But that’s not the case here in the US. Driver’s licenses are used as official ID for every purpose except international travel. Granting them to illegal immigrants who are most likely using false names and carrying false documents would be a HUGE mistake absent the implementation of some alternative form of ID to replace the driver’s license.
In any event, MEXICAN driver’s licenses are valid in the US. There’s no reason why all these Mexican immigrants can’t carry valid Mexican licenses. But oh wait, that would mean that they would have to show their REAL names, not the fake names they are using in the US. Oops.
In any event, nothing will ever change the current situation unless/until the US government gets serious about requiring employers to verify IDs. If the Federal goverment can establish a national background check for gun purchases, they can certainly implement the same system for employment. All it would take is a national database to verify SS numbers and other ID. The employer goes online to verify an ID and can’t hire the employee until the background check comes back clean. Of course this will never happen because the Republican business community wants the cheap immigrant labor pool that has no rights, and the Democrat/Hispanic community opposes regulations that would crack down too much on immigrants.
Governor Richardson is the Governor of New Mexico rather than Arizona.
I was just talking with a friend from Spain who had difficulty purchasing items or renting a video without an driver’s license. My suggestion is that we use identity cards anyhow.
“That’s all we want the DMV to do. Ask for a green card.”
There are people who don’t have green cards that still need to drive. What would you personally use to get a drivers license? Your birth certificate? How does DMV verify that?
“Why does it make sense for employers to ask but not our government agencies which we pay to enforce the law.”
We require employers to verify people have the legal status to work. Government agencies have to do the same thing. Employers don’t have to verify their customers are legal residents.
“They get fraudulent SS cards and fraudulent green cards “off the street” which are used to gain employment here. Everyone knows it and employers deliberately do not look very closely. Medicaid is paying for most of their medical care because hospitals and clinics do not look very hard at IDs.”
None of which is prevented by asking for green cards in order to get a drivers license.
We require employers to verify people have the legal status to work. Government agencies have to do the same thing.
You are shifting bobbing and weaving. Our government agencies (including police)are specifically told not to ask about legal status.
You are a hypocrit if you want employers to ask but it’s ok for opur government not to.
Arizona voters passed an intitiative which prohibits illegals from getting certain services and it punishes public employees if they don’t check legal status.
Something I hope will soo arrive here.
Perhaps we should only allow US Citizens to drive? Everyone else – from visitors to green card holders – SOL.
According to the Bush Administration, this will also help prevent Terrorism.
We could also deport any non-US Citizen who would be caught driving and/or seeking medical treatment at a hospital or clinic who couldn’t pay out of pocket.
Or we could just lock up liberals in concentration camps.
Perhaps that would help Bush too?
It’s so easy being asinine.
“They get fraudulent SS cards and fraudulent green cards “off the street” which are used to gain employment here. Everyone knows it and employers deliberately do not look very closely. Medicaid is paying for most of their medical care because hospitals and clinics do not look very hard at IDs.”
None of which is prevented by asking for green cards in order to get a drivers license.
Here’s what I didn’t explain. An actual legitimate green card is very difficult to counterfit. There are all sorts of built-in security devices such as holograms and micro-printing built into the plastic, just like the new $20 bills. They are even more sophisticated than typical driver’s licenses. So if you are a DMV employee you can easily spot counterfeit green cards if they lack the proper security details. It would be easier to fake a bith certificate than a green card.
Employeers who knowingly hire illegals, on the other hand, will squint at anything held in front of their face and will say, OK. In addition, I don’t think you need a green card to get hired anyway, you just need a social security card which is unbelievably easy to counterfeit for anyone who has a laser printer and heavy card stock. You need a green card to LEGALLY get a social security card. And when you go to the social security office they definitely will verify your immigration status with INS before mailing you the card.
The point about all of this is that there really isn’t any official ID that anyone is required to or needs to carry in this country. You need ID to travel internationally and some sort of ID to travel by air. But generally you don’t need any ID. so driver’s licenses have filled the void.
You can’t board a United flight from Logan to LAX with a bus pass.
(Golly gee, I hope I’m onto something.)
“So if you are a DMV employee you can easily spot counterfeit green cards if they lack the proper security details. ”
Even if true, the result is that people don’t have a drivers license. They can still get medicaid, a job etc. They just can’t drive legally and taking away the right to drive legally makes no sense.
Sure it does. Without connection to this country, through legal forms of identification, there is nothing stopping them from just hopping the border if, for instance, they drive drunk and kill a pedestrian or bicyclist. Green card holders generally are sponsored by somebody, either a relative, spouse, or employer, who presumably can be held accountable and at least be questioned by authorities as to the whereabouts of the person in question.
If we were so concerned about drivers’ licenses, why aren’t the Democrats in California acceding to Governor Schwarzenegger’s requests for a differently colored drivers’ license? Allegedly they are scared of being disciminated against when they are stopped by police. Well, they should be, because they are not here legally, and the police need to enforce the laws and realize that, yes, illegal immigrants have a little less of the ties that bind us to a certain community and are more likely to be less inhibited in commiting a crime, or more likely to flee once they do. Look at all the police officers killed in the US by illegal immigrants who are now in Mexico openly mocking the system by demanding to be tried under Mexican law. Some of whom, by the way, were killed in traffic stops.
“Green card holders generally are sponsored by somebody, either a relative, spouse, or employer, who presumably can be held accountable and at least be questioned by authorities as to the whereabouts of the person in question.”
I don’t think that is true. A green card is just a kind of visa. No sponsor, spouse, employer etc required.
“there is nothing stopping them from just hopping the border if, for instance, they drive drunk and kill a pedestrian or bicyclist.”
And their not having a drivers license won’t change this.
“Allegedly they are scared of being disciminated against when they are stopped by police. Well, they should be,”
I think this is the heart of the question. Is it in our interest to say to people who are working without proper papers that they have no legal protection in any other aspect of their lives? Or, like immunizations help keep us all healthy, does having laws that protect everyone also benefit all of us even those who occasionally disobey them.
“Look at all the police officers killed in the US by illegal immigrants who are now in Mexico openly mocking the system”
I looked. I didn’t find any.
I don’t think that is true. A green card is just a kind of visa. No sponsor, spouse, employer etc required.
Most legal immigrants are sponsored by somebody. The only ones that aren’t fall under the “diversity lottery”, which generally are African and South American individuals from countries that have few immigrants to the US. After all, the feds don’t want someone in this country who will just end up being a burden to taxpayers. Even refugees generally have a relative or other person willing to vouch for their status already in this country.
“Allegedly they are scared of being disciminated against when they are stopped by police. Well, they should be,”
I think this is the heart of the question. Is it in our interest to say to people who are working without proper papers that they have no legal protection in any other aspect of their lives? Or, like immunizations help keep us all healthy, does having laws that protect everyone also benefit all of us even those who occasionally disobey them.
Well, they get due process, and general human rights. We shouldn’t torture illegal immigrants, and we should ensure that communicable diseases don’t spread in that community. Driving is a privilege, not a right. People have two feet and they can walk if they are here illegally. You have the right to travel freely, but not necesasarily in the mode of your choice.
David March, killed by an illegal immigrant gang member in a traffic stop
Donald Young, killed by a undocumented worker
Wow… very interesting stuff here. I wish I would have seen this article earlier. Does anyone have any comments based on recent news or events since August?
I have a lot to say about the subject, but I wont since I think it would be useless to express my self considering your shallow mentality and belief, that we the illegal community do not have rights in this country.
And just so you know Mr. Williams, we too(the latino community) are ashamed of the latin criminals and think they should be sent back and punished, Instead of making a bad image for the rest of us who want to work and better ourselves, not wanting to give you another excuse to discriminate against us.
on another subject:
For anyone who posted a well thought comment, I just want to thank you for taking the time to rationalize the true essence of this issue and understand a real temp. solution, unlike the other narrow minded people just posting a comment with no real thought into the issue.
Oh! almost forgot!:
-Theodore John “Ted” Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber
-Timothy James McVeigh, was an American terrorist
responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. The bombing, which claimed 168 lives.
Abraham, I thought carefully before allowing your comment to be published, as it contains personally directed remarks that we generally don’t allow.
However, you have strong feelings and a strong perspective, so I let it go through. In the future please keep your comments focused on policies and issues, not individuals.
Thanks.
Kent Linn in his earlier comments has nailed the need for the State of Oregon to require and validate SS numbers and do an extensive validation of identification before issuing a drivers license.
I’ve just been staying at home not getting anything done. I guess it doesn’t bother me. Shrug. I haven’t been up to anything. I haven’t gotten much done today.
Two comments:
1. A drivers license is widely considered a form of identification; therefore before legal state issued identification is issued, one should be able to validate their identity. No papers, no identity, no license.
2. Even if we make a move to separating out identification from a driver’s license (or heck, a social security card as well, since many companies equate a SSN as identity, and its legality is questionable but permitted) – a drivers license does require you to follow the laws of the road, including obtaining liability insurance and proving financial responsibility. Therefore it is inherent that such be able to be proved – the last thing I want to do is get in a wreck with someone who might have a license, but is otherwise residing illegally in the country – and has no financial responsibility. They probably can’t get insurance; and if I sue them either they can’t be tracked to be held accountable, or the ICE will catch up with them and deport them. My option: a very expensive court trial to try and seize their U.S. assets, which is very unlikely (and they are probably hidden or under other assumed names).
Since an illegal resident has no concern for the law, what is to say they won’t reenter the country illegally? Anyone can read the reports that show that many do enter and re-enter numerous times.
Operating a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a right. The use of the roads, as public property, is a right – but the individual methods by which one uses the road are individual privileges. And rights are not guaranteed nor inferred to those who enter/remain in the country illegally, so for that “class” of person, there are no such “rights” – including the right to access public property, travel, use roads, or most importantly drive.
For those who follow the rules, enter the country legally and follow the terms of their visa – they are entitled to those rights as visitors of the country until the time their visa expires – and of course if granted permanent residency status or if they gain citizenship, their rights are guaranteed permanently to the same extent as any other U.S. citizen. (I.e. don’t become incarcerated for the offense of a crime. I, as a natural-born U.S. citizen, born to natural-born U.S. citizens, each born to natural-born U.S. citizens, can just as well lose my rights – including to travel – if I commit a crime.)
a drivers license does require you to follow the laws of the road, including obtaining liability insurance and proving financial responsibility. Therefore it is inherent that such be able to be proved – the last thing I want to do is get in a wreck with someone who might have a license, but is otherwise residing illegally in the country – and has no financial responsibility. They probably can’t get insurance;
They not only can they, but they almost always do. They want no trouble with the law and if they are stopped for speeding they want to be able to show they are insured. Moreover, they want their vehicle insured for the same reasons you do. And it is the vehicle owner, not the driver, who is responsible for insuring it.
heck, a social security card as well, since many companies equate a SSN as identity, and its legality is questionable but permitted
No it isn’t. See form I-9. If your employers didn’t have you sign one then they hired you illegally. A social security card can only be used in conjunction with other identification to show you are employable.
The larger concern about issuing drivers licenses to illegal aliens (no matter what country they are from) is that such an identification will become another component toward allowing such people to eventually vote. A negative scenario is that a sizeable group of like-minded and similarly “documented” people could begin to influence laws and policy in certain remote and forgotten communities: Like LA, for example.
Doesn’t the US recognize international drivers licenses? We really ought to know where folks are from and what they’re doin’ here. I’ve never had a tremnedous amount of confidence in the honesty of the average American citizen–so economically desperate foreigners would arouse even more concern, methinks.
Kent, keep it up. I bet a lot of those advocating a lax policy towards undocumented immigrants would change their tune if they were directly impacted in an adverse way. It is a sad truth that American subcultural groups have an inadequate understanding of others. Social conservatives in the US now are routinely labeled as “bigots” and “racist” for their stands on limiting immigration. If they (liberals) only knew of the huge number of voluntary projects, staffed by American religious and philanthropic groups, currently underway to improve life in developing countries they might soften their rhetoric. Or is that wishful thinking?
No it isn’t. See form I-9. If your employers didn’t have you sign one then they hired you illegally. A social security card can only be used in conjunction with other identification to show you are employable.
Who said I was talking strictly about employment?
Most credit applications require a SSN. That includes applying for utility service (i.e. electric, water/sewer, telephone) Also required for most financial matters. To buy a pre-paid cell phone, you must have a SSN.
The larger concern about issuing drivers licenses to illegal aliens (no matter what country they are from) is that such an identification will become another component toward allowing such people to eventually vote.
And how is that different than providing a driver’s licenses to any immigrant, regardless of their immigration status?
We really ought to know where folks are from and what they’re doin’ here.
Perhaps make immigrants wear a star of David on their clothes or tatoos …