Free Republic

The latest attempt to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in California cleared a Senate committee on Thursday but with provisions that restrict how the licenses can be used and what they would look like. The bill, by Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, would bring California into compliance with federal law. The REAL ID Act, signed by President Bush last week, requires states to verify that people who apply for a driver's license are in the country legally. It also allows states to choose whether to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants as long as they have different markings —...

Illegal immigrant rights activists say the recent groundswell of anti-immigration measures in Arizona is making the lives of immigrants, and anyone who looks like one, miserable and must be countered in kind: by making the lives of Arizonans more difficult through lost business and tourism.

Border Control Key to National Security By Paul Weyrich May 13, 2005 We must control our country’s borders. Former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Admiral James M. Loy appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February to counsel the Committee about improving immigration control at our nation’s borders. He delivered a message that was not given wide media coverage but one that many Americans already knew. Admiral Loy said: Recent information from ongoing investigations, detentions, and emerging threat streams strongly suggests that al-Qaeda has considered using the Southwest Border to infiltrate the United States. Several al-Qaeda leaders believe...

Rockville (AP) - Hundreds of Latino immigrants - many of them illegal - gathered this afternoon in Rockville to protest proposed federal restrictions that would deny driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The federal Real I-D Act is part of the bill covering the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been passed by the U.S. House and endorsed by the White House. Opponents say the bill will likely pass in the Senate - maybe as early as next week. Maryland is one of ten states that don't require applicants to prove they are citizens or legal residents....

On Saturday afternoon, I drove to Rockville, Md., for a large "gathering to condemn the REAL ID Act." (The act will tighten driver's license standards to prevent illegal aliens from obtaining the IDs, close asylum loopholes, and provide funding to fix a huge gap in a border fence between California and Mexico.) Casa de Maryland, a government-funded open-borders group, organized the protest on the public school athletic field at Richard Montgomery High School. You can see the rally photos I took at my new Flickr site. Here's a sample: www.flickr.com Several hundred "documented" and "undocumented" workers attended, demanding driver's licenses...

Congress set to impose ID card rules States would need to verify papers By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | May 5, 2005 WASHINGTON -- Congressional negotiators have agreed on a sweeping new system that would nationalize standards for driver's licenses and state identification cards, requiring states to verify the authenticity of every document that people use to prove their identity and show their legal residency. If the House and Senate both pass the bill next week as expected, by May 2008 every state will be required to contact the issuers of birth certificates, mortgage statements, utility bills, Social Security cards,...

It is against the law to deny an illegal alien a driver's license, says the executive director of an immigration-rights advocacy group in Maryland, presumably with a straight face and without the help of a laugh track. The advocacy group obviously picks which laws to embrace. An illegal alien is an illegal alien, after all. Given the potential usefulness of this upside-down appeal, an advocacy group for pickpockets is perhaps an idea whose time is nearing. If so, in these enlightened times, the group undoubtedly would seek assault charges against anyone who might clamp down on the wrist of the...

(Stopping illegals) ... & replicating success Wednesday, May 4, 2005 The lack of a shot heard 'round the world helped make the Minuteman Project successful in Arizona and inviting to California. The Minuteman Project is a citizens' neighborhood watch spotlighting illegal immigration. It describes itself as "Americans doing the jobs our government won't do. Operating within the law to support enforcement of the law." In April, roughly 1,000 volunteers kept a lookout for suspicious activity along a 23-mile sliver of sovereign soil bordering Mexico. It had been used by untold numbers of illegal aliens to sneak into America. The citizen-patriots...