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After more than three hours of debate, the House of Representatives has voted to overturn the controversial state law that allows foreign nationals to obtain New Mexico driver’s licenses, regardless of whether they are in the country legally.

SANTA FE (KRQE) - The House Judiciary Committee late Friday approved a bill to ban drivers licenses for illegal immigrants after efforts to find a compromise failed. A bipartisan group had been trying to find common ground with Gov. Susana Martinez and the Senate but couldn't do it. One Democratic version would have continued the licenses but for shorter terms and with tighter restrictions. There was also a proposal to give illegals temporary permits that could be used for driving but not for ID or other purposes.

SANTA FE, N.M. — Republican Gov. Susana Martinez suffered a temporary political setback Thursday in a bid to stop New Mexico from granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

SANTA FE — An Associated Press investigation has found that addresses of dozens of the same businesses and homes across New Mexico were used over and over again by people to get driver’s licenses in a pattern that suggests potential fraud by immigrants trying to game the system. In one instance, 48 foreign nationals claimed to live at a smoke shop in Albuquerque to get a license. In another case, more than a dozen claimed to live at an automotive repair shop over a one-year period. The scenario has been repeated at other addresses since New Mexico changed its law...

SANTA FE – Gov. Susana Martinez joined Archbishop Michael Sheehan and other Catholic bishops for breakfast Wednesday and met privately in the state Capitol over the weekend with New Mexico’s top-ranking Roman Catholic leader. But while the governor and Sheehan were able to find common ground regarding an abortion bill, they remain divided on the high-profile driver’s license issue. Sheehan and other Catholic bishops have staunchly defended the 2003 state law that allows illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, while Martinez has waged a high-profile effort to repeal the law. At the Wednesday morning Catholic prayer breakfast attended by Martinez...

SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) - A New Mexico judge on Wednesday blocked a move by the state's Republican governor to make it harder for illegal immigrants to keep driver's licenses in the state. Governor Susana Martinez's administration last month ordered the state to reverify the physical residency of foreign nationals who hold New Mexico driver's licenses in order to get or keep their licenses.But District Court Judge Sarah Singleton in Santa Fe issued a temporary restraining order blocking the program, arguing in a brief ruling that "irreparable injury" would occur from "constitutional deprivations to the applicants

SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico is one of just two states, the other being Washington, that allow in-state residents who are illegal immigrants to get the same driver’s licenses given to citizens, as long as they pass a written test and successfully show they can turn and stop and park. But critics, led by the newly elected governor, Susana Martinez, say that the lenient licensing law attracts illegal immigrants from far and wide who fraudulently claim they live in New Mexico in order to get identification cards that allow them to settle into American life. “We don’t have any...

Gov. Susana Martinez’s push to repeal the 2003 law that allows illegal immigrants to obtain New Mexico driver’s licenses is generating opposition from the state’s Roman Catholic hierarchy. The state’s Catholic bishops, an active voice in many hot-button political issues in recent years, are urging Martinez and state lawmakers not to scrap the controversial law, contending it benefits public safety and the economy. A statement released this week and signed by Archbishop Michael Sheehan, Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces and Bishop James S. Wall of Gallup, asserts the law leads to more drivers having auto insurance and allows immigrant...

Snips from Excerpt only website: But the IDs originating from one Chinese company are nearly flawless to the untrained eye, officials said. They copy more of the security features that appear on the real thing -- holograms, bar codes, magnetic strips that can be scanned, and ultraviolet images. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Chicago this year have seized more than 1,700 Chinese-produced phony driver's licenses for the states of Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, Georgia, and South Dakota.

Foreign nationals from around the state are being summoned to Albuquerque for a check of their New Mexico driver’s license documents, but roadblocks might confront some drivers from the south: namely, U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints. Las Cruces-area drivers, for instance, who are in the United States illegally but who have legally obtained New Mexico licenses, might not be able to clear southern checkpoints to head north to Albuquerque. The roads leading from the Las Cruces area to the interior of New Mexico have five checkpoints, including one on Interstate 25 about 25 miles north of the border, according to the...

Ten thousand randomly selected foreign nationals with New Mexico driver’s licenses are being told to make appointments in Albuquerque to verify their residency, Gov. Susana Martinez’s office said Tuesday. Drivers who don’t make the appointments or fail to provide proof of residency would face cancellation of their licenses, the Governor’s Office said. Martinez said the residency certification program will provide data about the extent to which licenses have been issued to people who don’t live in New Mexico. The administration said the letters were to go out beginning immediately to 10,000 of the 85,000 foreign nationals without Social Security numbers...

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested and charged Jose Luis Aguirre last month with harboring illegal immigrants ...... [He] took out an ad in El Diaro, a Spanish-language daily in New York City, to attract clients for his services facilitating driver’s license acquisition in New Mexico, according to court papers. The cost ... $2,500 to $2,700, plus expenses ...Aguirre’s is the latest case in an international market that has drawn foreign nationals from India, Poland, Brazil, Korea and elsewhere to fraudulently obtain New Mexico licenses. The governor has called on state lawmakers to repeal the law and wants licenses already issued...

Nearly a year before an Albuquerque notary was arrested as part of an alleged heroin trafficking ring run mostly by illegal immigrants, a state agency accused her of fraudulently helping foreign nationals obtain New Mexico driver's licenses. The evidence against Ana Hernandez after an internal investigation by the state's Tax Fraud Investigations Division was blunt when sent up the ladder in June 2010: signing false names onto birth certificates and using an old business address as a residential address to help 29 people obtain driver's licenses. She at times used her name and three aliases to process and notarize the...

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck announced Monday that his officers will no longer automatically tow the cars of illegal immigrant drivers stopped at sobriety checkpoints. The policy comes in response to the concerns of Latino civil rights activists, who say impound fees are unfairly costing otherwise hardworking illegal immigrant drivers hundreds of dollars. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said his department impounds about 1,000 cars a year from illegal immigrants at sobriety checkpoints – not because they’re drunk but because they don’t have driver’s licenses. “As we reviewed our impound policies it became obvious to me that they...

The blast worked. A bill carried by Rep. Andy Nuñez (I-Hatch) that would rescind the state’s policy allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses successfully bypassed the committee process — a rarely used parliamentary procedure called “blasting a bill” — Friday (March 4) when the House floor voted 42-28 to move the measure onto the Senate. Eight Democrats defected to the side of the Republicans and Nuñez, completing two arduous days of deliberation that saw the 75-year-old Nuñez stay on his feet, verbally punching and counterpunching opponents, some of whom bitterly complained about the bill skipping committees and the passage...

SANTA FE — New Mexico moved a step closer to prohibiting foreign nationals from obtaining driver's licenses, as members of the House of Representatives voted Friday to effectively overturn a 2003 state law. The battle over the politically charged issue, which Gov. Susana Martinez has made a top priority during the 60-day legislative session, now moves on to the state Senate. The 42-28 vote taken Friday after two days of grueling debate demonstrated the new-found clout of House Republicans, who picked up eight seats in last fall's elections. However, eight Democrats broke party ranks to help give Republicans the votes...

SANTA FE — A grueling day of high-stakes political wrangling over immigrant driver's licenses in the New Mexico Legislature ended without a clear resolution. However, House Republicans, with the help of several Democrats, gave life to one of Gov. Susana Martinez's campaign priorities by circumventing the usual committee process to revive a bill that would effectively repeal the state law that allows illegal immigrants to obtain New Mexico driver's licenses. A final vote on the measure, House Bill 78, was put off until today, with House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, vowing it will be among the first items discussed....

New Mexico's legislative Democrats are busy dialing up controversy over Republican Gov. Susana Martinez' use of robocalls to voters in her effort to get an up-or-down vote on issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Lawmakers should try dialing up Illinois, Georgia, Florida or New York instead. In recent months people have been charged with bringing over immigrants who are living in those states, which do not provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, to New Mexico. Or they could take an extra step and punch in a foreign area code to call Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Poland or Russia....

....An estimated 230,000 illegal immigrants were living in Washington state last year — 35 percent more than three years earlier, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center. The total represents one of every 20 workers in the state. ... They found that nationwide, illegal immigrants numbered 11.2 million, virtually unchanged from 2009 and down from a peak 12 million in 2007...While 57 percent are from Mexico, the illegal immigrants hail from across the world...They include people who sneaked across the borders, as well as those who came legally but overstayed employment, student or visitor visas. Continued failure...

Police say that at least seven employees at the state license bureau in Delray Beach have been taking bribes to issue drivers licenses to illegal aliens. The scam allegedly put drivers licenses in the hands more than 1,500 illegal aliens. On Thursday, police in Palm Beach arrested Willy Adam, 52, and charged him with five counts of unlawful compensation to reward official behavior, and two counts of conspiracy, both felonies. At his arraignment, Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Alan Johnson, told Judge Ted S. Booras that Adam is not a U.S. citizen and presents a flight risk. He is...