Posted on 03/13/2005 10:03:59 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Until Wednesday, 11 states issued driver licenses to illegal immigrants. On Wednesday, Utah's governor signed a bill that denies such immigrants licenses, offering them instead readily distinguishable "driving privilege cards."
Utah's action points to a national wave of public concern about issuing to illegal immigrants a license to do far more than drive. It's a wave, too, that will become a veritable tsunami if federal legislation that just passed the House of Representatives makes it, as it should, through the Senate. In that event, states may continue to issue driver licenses to illegal immigrants, but driver licenses from those states will not be accepted for federal identification purposes – to board a plane, for example, or enter a federal building.
To have their licenses accepted for federal purposes, states would have to require applicants for driver licenses to show "valid documentary evidence" that they are legally in the United States.
States would have to include on the license information to identify the holder and prevent "tampering, counterfeiting or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes." Such as flying around the country in preparation for piloting passenger jets into skyscrapers.
States would have to verify "the issuance, validity and completeness of each document" presented and accept no documents issued by foreign nations other than official passports.
To receive federal funding for these license changes, states would have to ensure that the identifying information on their licenses can be electronically shared in an all-states database and in an "appropriate aviation security screening database."
Obviously, much of the impetus for this bill derives from Sept. 11, 2001. According to "9/11 and Terrorist Travel, the Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," the 19 hijackers entered the country on visas that should never have been granted, a fact that went unnoticed in part because they obtained, fraudulently but easily, at least 19 state driver licenses and 10 state cards, readily honored while they were here. For traveling easily, renting housing, moving money, the licenses and ID cards were invaluable.
Would the proposed legislation have stopped the hijackers? It's impossible to say it would have. Or that it wouldn't. So what's the point of this legislation?
Start with the fact that neither the nation nor the states should make travel easy for illegal immigrants bent on doing harm here. Driver licenses have become de facto identification cards, "breeder documents" that can facilitate further illegal acts, from terrorism to lesser crimes, by illegal immigrants. Determining the legal status of license applicants adds another check against their abuse.
And move on to the overweening fact that making illegal immigrants legal drivers rewards their illegality, encourages other illegal immigrants and further blurs the already too-fuzzy line between legal and illegal residents. Limiting driver licenses to legal residents is only one clarifying dot along that line, but one Congress and the states should endorse.
Instead of all the hand wringing over giving illegals anything, let's have a proper infrastructure to deport these people. If anyone (on the left) complains, just tell them its far more kind then the treatment illegals would receive in most European countries.
WHOA,...ping for later
Fake ID to get a fake ID.
Ill;egal aliens should be denied ALL legal driving capability if for no other reason than their refusal to carry mandatory liability insurance. Sure, most will get a week's worth of liability coverage to get plates or a license with fake ID. But most send the cost of insurance back to Mexico and Presidente Fox's thieves. Try to listen to a river swimmer's explanation when being question by a cop as to where his proof of insurance is. In many states, drivers have to buy "uninsured drivers liability insurance" to allow make it easier for these criminals to stay on the road and send money back. "We doone need no steenkin liability surance, we are Mejicanos!"
States would have to
States would have to
States would have to
States would have to
this is the game the Fed Gvt plays.. demanding or userping State's rights in the name of some "cure" for something that all along they have been lax at enforcing. and with it goes legal citizen's rights - right down the toilet. if they had been enforcing laws ALREADY in place this NID card would laughed at. i'm sick of this "game" the lawmakers play with the Constitution. it's a sell out and a cop out. but then that's all they've done for the last 70 years.
Hasn't it been discussed on FR that illegals are eligible for SS benefits after 18 months in this country? (while LEGAL workers, aka Americans, are required to work MANY years till retirement age, before they can collect SS?)
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