Judge rules DMV can refuse ID (matricula consular)

A Wake County Superior Court judge on Friday refused to stop the state from enforcing new rules that would make it harder for Mexican immigrants to get driver licenses and state-issued identification cards.

Wake Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens said the state Division of Motor Vehicles had the authority to stop accepting Mexican identification cards and other forms of ID without holding public hearings. Two Latino groups filed suit Thursday to try to block the state from enforcing the rules until the public had a chance to comment on them.

Barring a successful appeal, the state will begin enforcing the new ID requirements on Monday.

The change aims to prevent criminals and possibly terrorists from using fake documents to get licenses or ID cards from the DMV. Several forms of ID, including birth certificates from countries other than the United States or Canada, will no longer be accepted.

The change that has packed DMV offices statewide would bar the use of Mexican voting cards as well as the "matricula consular," ID cards issued by Mexican consulates that are often carried by illegal immigrants. With a deadline looming today, immigrants have been lining up for hours in hopes of getting a license or ID card.

"Notice and fair hearing is what we call it in our Constitution," said Alan McSurely, attorney for the two groups. "That's what we're asking for."

But attorneys for the state cited DMV statutes that give the commissioner the power to decide what forms of ID are acceptable. They noted that the matricula consular and other forms of ID were added to the list without public hearings.

The lawsuit, brought by the Latino Community Development Center and The Latino Community Credit Union, both of Durham, argued that changing the ID requirements should have been covered by the state's rules-making regulations, which require public hearings.

Hang on, let me get this straight. Illegal immigrants, or at the very least their representative bodies, are arging that the AMERICAN lawmaking process should apply to THEM?

Where the sam hell do these charlatans get off, I wonder?

The ongoing debasement of the English language: they are not "immigrants". They are aliens.

Merriam-Webster
Main Entry: im·mi·grant Pronunciation: 'i-mi-gr&nt Function: noun : one that immigrates : as a : a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
im·mi·grant P Pronunciation Key (m-grnt) n. A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another. A plant or animal that establishes itself in an area where it previously did not exist.

The ongoing debasement of the English language: they are not "immigrants". They are aliens.

ENGLISH? I'd call that American, sorry. I was brought up, like just about all Australians (and I daresay most English-speakers in the Southern Hemisphere for that matter) to regard "aliens" as being from another PLANET.

Imagine my surprise then, at being labelled an "alien" in the United States. For one thing, I felt like painting my face green as a type of (weird and ineffectual) protest (which explains why I didn;t end up doing so). But for another thing, I thought "EXCUSE me? MY country, Australia has been a fair-dinkum ally of the US since oh, the start of the 20th century at least. WE'RE not a country who has to put adverts on American TV (a la Saudi Arabia) saying, "But we're you're friends..." - in Australia's case, it's a given. Three hours after the towers fell on Sept 11th, 2001, I heard the engines firing up on Australia's attack air force main fleet (I live five miles from this base, and let me tell you, they are not usually firing up the engines of those f-111's at four-thirty in the morning...)

For those who think I'm rambling off-topic, I'm not. As an Australian citizen who had not yet secured a spousal visa (despite being married to an American born and raised man since November 2002), I am not allowed back into the USA until mid-2006. This means I could not even attend my husband's cremation ceremony...

Angry? No. I still love the USA, as much as I love the (late) man I married. But damn straight I'm bitter. People like myself, from countries who have HELPED AMERICA OUT in just about every war since Vietnam, are being given less priviledges than the Arab a-holes who drove the planes into buildings on September 11, 2001.

Why am I being made to do time for the crimes of people with whom I share no common heritage, no religion, no region of origin...

I know I'll be attacked, but I refuse to share guilt with people whose actions I vehemently opposed, even beore I entered America. I fail to see why I should share their punishment now.

That's a very sad story. Sorry to hear about your husband.

It's stories like yours that are infuriating to Americans who know something about our immigration system (and most Americans don't, because they have no experience with it and never will).

I've personally gone through the immigration process with my foreign-born wife, and I can understand your frustration with that system. As a native American citizen, I was treated no differently than you were while in the maw of our immigration officials. It was a harsh and very unpleasant experience, so bad that even *I* was beginning to feel like the "foreigner."

They lost our files, misprinted my wife's green card (we never bothered to fix it), delayed multiple applications for a total of one year, interviewed us TWICE for "marital legitimacy," etc. Coupled with an emergency fight halfway around the globe to fix a visa problem, and the one-year separation from my wife, it was on the whole an unpleasant experience. I had to call on my Congressional representatives at least twice to fix additional bureaucratic problems.

And to clarify my use of the term "alien", here in the States we have ongoing use of the word "immigrant" to describe the several million illegal entrants to our country. I was trying to point out that this is an incorect use of the word "immigrant," because it implies some sort of permanent status, which illegals of course do not have. Also it is extremely insulting to people such as you and my wife who have been legitimate and legal immigrants. So that's why I mentioned an alternative, and perhaps "foreigner" is less abrasive.

I hope your outlook on America is not permanently colored by your terrible experience with our immigration agency. It is a very bad agency and casts an unfortunate reflection upon our country.

Thankyou.

Your post made me cry (gratitude at being understood)

I wish no ill-will against the United States or its citizens. Its government agencies, however, like those in my own country... well, they're another kettle of fish altogether.

I still love the USA, and I still love my late husband. However, I despise the jumped-up little wannabe Nazis whom, in the whole, comprise the INS (or whatever the acronym is now. Nothing to do with me, really, as I strongly suspect I'll never be let back into the USA again... and this breaks my heart almost as much as the death of my husband did.)

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