Baaa!!!
Posted on 01/26/2005 12:30:38 AM PST by gubamyster
01-26-05
By Taft Wireback, Staff Writer News & Record
North Carolina examiners should not aggressively investigate illegal immigrants who might be seeking fraudulent driver's licenses, a top state executive suggested in a memo nearly two years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In fact, Wayne Hurder, who supervises the state's driver-license section for the state Division of Motor Vehicles in Raleigh, sent an e-mail message in August 2003 criticizing some of his DMV officials for being too aggressive with immigrants who presented identification and other documents that examiners thought suspicious.
"As I stated for the last nine years, the fact that a person is in the United States without the permission of the Department of Homeland Security (formerly INS) is irrelevant as far as North Carolina DMV is concerned," Hurder said in the message to six other DMV officials, including several regional chief examiners.
"If local law enforcement wants to make an issue of their legal status, that obviously is their right and responsibility depending on the statutes under which they operate," Hurder said. "But let me make it clear -- for the umpteenth time -- North Carolina General Statutes, Chapter 20 does not involve itself with a person's legal status in determining their eligibility to apply for a license."
North Carolina DMV Commissioner George Tatum, Hurder's boss, disavowed Hurder's memo in a Tuesday interview, saying that it doesn't represent the division's current outlook on identity fraud by unlawful immigrants.
"It is not representative of my vision or a statement I would make for what we should do here," Tatum said.
He added that the division's Operation Stop Fraud initiative, unveiled early last year, specifically targets all sorts of identity fraud using approaches recommended by Homeland Security and the FBI.
But North Carolina has a wide-ranging reputation as a mecca for illegal immigrants from throughout the eastern third of the country seeking fraudulent licenses, particularly Latinos.
The state's poor reputation was the subject of a report broadcast nationally last week on CNN. The broadcast focused on the efforts of Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson to stem the flow of licenses to illegal immigrants at the DMV office in Graham.
As cameras whirred, an illegal alien from Mexico tried unsuccessfully to get a fraudulent license.
Other warning signs abound. Last fall, an examiner at Greensboro's East Market Street DMV office was indicted on felony fraud charges for "falsely issuing" 20 licenses in late 2003 and early last year. Recent arrests in Moore, Montgomery and Yadkin counties broke up rings of people allegedly involved in various aspects of the fraudulent license trade.
Motor vehicle chief Tatum says the state's reputation as a soft touch for illegal immigrants is no longer accurate.
"We're going to work with all levels of law enforcement to ensure the citizens of North Carolina that their identities are protected from theft and other fraud," he said.
Tatum pointed out that the state is deploying some of the nation's most advanced techniques to detect false documents and other licensing fraud.
Efforts to reach Hurder, who supervises the state's driver licensing offices, were unsuccessful.
In his memo, Hurder cautioned the other DMV officials that he was concerned "that you continue to make these references to a person's immigration status," because "if a person from the outside, such as a lawyer or a reporter, were to review the documents you sent us ... they might jump to the conclusion that DMV is targeting people due to their illegal status."
His memo, and the fact that Tatum disavows its currency, suggest the great changes that have swept across the driver-licensing profession since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, particularly in the past year or so.
Since the attacks, many states have put explicit statements in their laws or licensing procedures that a driver's license applicant must be "legally present" in this country to qualify. North Carolina is one of 10 states that does not, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.
Critics say that North Carolina still has a long way to go before its licensing procedures are up to par.
"Nobody told the legislature that DMV was issuing licenses to people with absolutely no proof of their legal presence (in this country)," said former state Sen. Fern Shubert of Marshville, who made the issue a centerpiece of her unsuccessful campaign for governor last year.
Asked for his response to the memo, Gov. Mike Easley said through a spokeswoman that his office instructed DMV to put Operation Stop Fraud into effect last year and continues "to raise the level of security for driver licenses in North Carolina."
Johnson's department has been particularly vigilant in trying to root out licensing fraud in Alamance County, arresting more than 125 people in the past year, many of them illegal immigrants.
Randy Jones, a spokesman for the Alamance sheriff, said he finds the tone of Hurder's memo unsettling.
"The tone that I perceive from that memo is that DMV personnel are supposed to ignore criminal activity," Jones said. Jones said that apart from the national security issues, DMV's past failures in licensing scrutiny bedevil police as they try to identify or locate immigrants in the daily grind of police work.
Tatum said that if Hurder's memo had a tone that was not friendly to law enforcement, it is wrong: DMV wants to work with police and sheriffs to improve licensing procedures.
Tatum declined to answer questions about the incident at the Greensboro DMV last year, except to say the arrest of examiner Samantha Ann McCain showed that the agency is vigilant in seeking out and prosecuting wrongdoing.
Court records show that McCain was indicted Oct. 18 for "unlawfully, willfully and feloniously" issuing the wrongful licenses between Aug. 14, 2003, and Jan. 16, 2004, of last year.
Efforts to reach McCain, a Reidsville resident, were unsuccessful. Her attorney, Joseph E. Bruner of High Point, declined comment. Assistant District Attorney David Long, who is prosecuting the case, also declined comment.
Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or twireback@news-record.com
ping
Just Damn!
I'm getting sick of being the dope who plays by the rules and gets, essentially, nothing for my tax dollars. I'm at the point now where I pay more in taxes EVERY YEAR than the cost of my first home, which I'd just now be paying off after 30 years, had I not moved to a different area.
You obey the laws in this country, and your insulted, screwed-over and ignored while they take your money to give Social Security to those who never contributed a cent, condoms to middle schoolers, sex change operations to prison inmates and drivers' licenses to illegal aliens.
Our priorities are way out of whack.
Fish rot from the head down.
Amen, Brother.
There are way too many people running a government that simply isn't working anymore. Their fat pensions fund lobbies that perpetuate wasteful spending and moronic memos like this one.
Face it: We are outnumbered.
mornin.
we've been abiding by the "rules" our whole lives, and all we get is higher taxes and less to show for it....
yep....we middle American types can just about be assured that more and more will be taken from us and given to the undeserving......less and less will come our way, as far as health care, or college for our kids......
honestly, should we learn to cheat?
Baaa!!!
Really? So Hurder's been fired...?
There is a trail of money and influence here somewhere. He was leaned on by the chamber of commerce types to expedite this fraud on the citizens.
Amen x 1000
To add insult to injury, these procedures are not an oversight or mistake, they are purposefully employed in order to sap our precious bodily fluids.
DITTO!!
I’ve been to hell. I spell it...i spell it DMV
Anyone that’s been there knows precisely what I mean
Stood there and I’ve waited and choked back the urge to scream
And if I had my druthers I’d screw a chimpanzee-call it pointless
When I need relief I spell it thc
Perhpas you may know vaguely what I mean
I sit back and smoke away huge chunks of memory
As I slowly inflict upon myself a full lobotomy-call it pointless
Barbecues, tea kettles, gobs of axle grease
There comes a time for every man to sail the seas of cheese
Now, life’s a bowl of bagel dogs, but there are unpleasantries
Cold toilet seats, dentist chairs and trips to the DMV
Call it pointless
I’ve been to hell. I spell it...i spell it DMV
Anyone that’s been there knows precisely what I mean
I’ve stood in line and waited near an hour and fifteen
And if I had my druthers I’d screw that chimpanzee-call it pointless
I suggest that you submit your post, exactly as it is to news papers as a letter to the editor.
WHERE"S THE OUTRAGE???
From an earlier posted email:
COWS AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:
Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else find it fascinating that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to her stall in the state of Washington. They also tracked her calves to their stalls. Yet, we are somehow unable to locate 20 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should start giving each of them a cow when they cross the border.
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