The law known as AB60 took effect on January 2, 2015. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) expects a total of about 1.4 million people will get their license under the law by late 2017.
Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed the law in October 2013 to give a legal document to the 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in California alone — most from Latin America and particularly neighboring Mexico.
California officials believe the program — which does not give license holders any US federal benefits — does make roads in the most populous US state safer, several state sources said.
It does not allow license holders, for example, the right to fly on airplanes inside the United States, nor does it give anyone legal residency status, the right to work or to seek a US passport.
But among the upsides are that California drivers with the document can drive legally across the entire vast United States, without being fined or facing fear of having their vehicle impounded.
This story confuses me for a few reasons:
1) I worked legally (work visa) in Mexico in the 1980s. I drove with my U.S. driver license but did buy auto insurance in Mexico. My agent told me that it was legal to drive in Mexico with a valid U.S. license.
Question: Why don’t these people drive in the U.S. with their country’s driver licenses? Don’t they have one? Wouldn’t it make more sense for these people to renew their country’s licenses at their respective consulates?
2) Aren’t we making it easy for terrorists to operate a car normally in the U.S.? The aforementioned article states that people can drive across the U.S. with this license.
3) The rationale for the law is that they give California a better way of tracking these individuals. Really? There are 2.5 million people in California without papers. I think that the law is having the opposite effect or encouraging more people to go to California. Add sanctuary cities like San Francisco, and you have a state that does not take immigration laws seriously at all.
Over the years, I have supported some reasonable legalization programs (not citizenship) that allow many of these people to come out of the closet and work legally in the U.S. However, allowing a person in the country illegally to get a driver’s license makes a mockery of U.S. immigration laws.
What’s next? Getting registered to vote Democrat?
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