FR Exclusive: Jeb answers questions about his support of drivers licenses for undocumented workers

Note to FR, from summer:

FYI -- I am posting here below: (1) an email I sent to Gov Bush today, (2) his email response to me, and (3) another email response he directed to me, and you, from his office.

As most people here know (because I wrote about it at length on FR), I previously had a long dialogue with Gov Bush about education, via email. And, at times, I have emailed him about issues of concern to people on FR.

Consequently, this is another exclusive for you.

summer

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Email #1, from me to Gov Bush, today:

-----Original Message-----

From: [summer]
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 3:11 PM
To: Jeb Bush
Subject: FR person's fax to you

FR Person's fax to you

Gov Bush, I'm sending a copy of this to you, as suggested in the headline, so that if you want to respond online, to the people reading it, let me know and I will post it for you. [summer]

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Email #2, from Gov Bush to me, in response to above:

----- Original Message -----

From: Jeb Bush
To: [summer]
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 6:54 PM
Subject: RE: FR person's fax to you

[summer], I will get [my office] to respond to you.

Jeb

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Email #3, directed by Gov Bush to me and you, from his office, to all here:

----- Original Message -----

From: [Gov Bush's office]
To: 'Jeb Bush'; [summer]
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 7:25 PM
Subject: RE: FR person's fax to you

[summer] --

I hope the below Q&A is helpful. Please let me know if you need anything else.

Best,

[Gov Bush's office]

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Florida Safe Driving Act

[1] Why give driver licenses to undocumented aliens?

Florida has no power over immigration and naturalization issues, but it does have a duty to protect the safety of its citizens. Allowing Florida’s more than 400,000 illegal aliens to obtain a driver license under very strict conditions will increase safety on our roads and highways. It will boost compliance with Florida’s auto registration and insurance laws.

Also, a separate provision in the bill makes it easier for people with visas to renew their Florida driver licenses. Many individuals from outside the country visit Florida annually for an extended period of time. The new law allows them to renew their licenses every two years, rather than having it automatically expire every time they leave the country.

[2]Why wouldn’t the state just deport the aliens once they have verified their identity?

Under Federal law, no state has the power to deport anyone; it is exclusively the domain of the Federal government.

[3]What does the bill require?

This bill creates some of the highest verification standards in the country. It has more than 15 requirements for approval, and it requires the consulates to provide the applicant’s documentation to the state of Florida.

Aliens would be required to:

Ø show an identification card with digital image that has been produced with standards that would prevent counterfeiting;

Ø provide a second form of identification;

Ø submit fingerprints to the state; and

Ø agree to a criminal background check from their country of origin, the state of Florida and the United States.

The bill creates a mechanism for Florida to work with foreign consulates to approve a stringent means by which to verify the alien’s identity and ensure the consulate is not issuing a duplicate ID. Any consulate that cannot meet these verification standards will not be able to participate in the program.

Among the requirements consulates must show:

Ø documentation that the applicant has not been convicted, or is wanted of a crime equal to a felony in his home country;

Ø a certified copy of the applicant’s official driving record from home country;

Ø certification that the form of identification is legitimate;

Ø certification that the underlying documents used to issue identification are legitimate; and

Ø certification that the home country has security system in place to prevent multiple issuance of identification cards to the same individual.

[4] Who does this bill not apply to?

Aliens from countries on the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism are prohibited from applying, as are those who are subject to an order of deportation. Felons cannot apply nor can aliens who cannot establish presence in the state for at least six months in the past five years.

[5] How does this differ from California law?

First, California law did not exclude applicants from the list of countries maintained by the U.S. Department of State as state sponsors of terrorism. In addition, California did not require state and national criminal background checks, nor did it provide procedures in conjunction with foreign consulates to verify identity and criminal backgrounds with an applicant’s home country.

[6] Where will the licenses be valid?

The licenses are valid in Florida only, for two years. They will have a distinct look from standard driver licenses.

[7]How will the bill be implemented?

Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles will be responsible for adopting stringent procedures and coordinating with the consulates to ensure verifications of identity and background history of aliens. Consulates will have to provide certifications of the processes they have in place to establish identity of their citizens who apply. If a consulate does not meet these standards, their citizens will be prohibited from applying.

[8]What are the benefits of issuing the licenses?

First and foremost, this bill promotes safety by requiring that aliens pass driving tests before they get on the road. It will also boost compliance with Florida’s auto registration and insurance laws. Increasing the number of insured drivers is an enormous benefit to all on the road. Currently, a licensed driver who gets into an auto accident with an unlicensed alien has no means to recover damages against the uninsured alien.

There are also law enforcement benefits; a database of licensed drivers helps law enforcement verify the identity of a driver who is pulled over. Unlicensed, undocumented aliens currently are not part of this database.

This bill serves the interest of two groups and two groups only. First it serves the illegals, if it does nothing it serves to make them more comfortable with their illegal status. It also gives them comfort to know that there is not the political will to deal with them in any significant fashion. Secondly, Governor Bush is a politician as well as chief bureaucrat of his state. Bureaucrats in order to justify their existence need control. Everyone on this forum knows that the illegal alien situation in this nation is completely out of control.

The bureaucratic bullies and politicians can intimidate and send fear in the hearts of us taxpaying law abiding citizens by simply passing more unnecessary and ridiculous laws such as tweaking the child safey seat legislation or further tinkering with the DUI laws or seat belts laws. But they are shown as the pathetic impotent group that they are when it comes to illegals. They will do anything to save face by attempting to cover the illegals with some kind of law. But as so many posters have pointed out, such an attempt is pure folly. How do you cover one with the law, when their mere presence in this nation is a violation of law? I have no doubt that Jeb Bush is a sincere human being, but I also have no doubt that he has grown blind to principle by pragmatism.

Re your post #37 - Because they want to eventually become citizens? I am just guessing. I think there are illegals who want to become legal. No?

Why would they want to become citizens? So they can be paid less over the table than they are under the table? So their welfare claims might be disputed? So that charges for emergency room visits might be garnished from their wages? So that when the United States collapses under the burden of too many illegal workers, they won't have a country of origin to return to?

And I see where the Bush Administration wants to give illegals the right to have returned to them the taxes they've paid into Social Security under phoney SS numbers. Now, considering that somewhere around 90% of the money that I should be receiving from Social Security will never find its way back to me, even should I live to be ninety, why on Earth would an illegal want to become a US citizen and lose an opportunity to reclaim all that money?

Please don't tell me that illegals would want to be citizens because 'then they won't live in fear of deportation.' I've known of illegals who've been deported and were back on the job two weeks later -- and I live over a thousand miles from the Mexican border!

None of the patrician Bush family members realizes what it's like out here. Half the jobs in the factories are taken by illegals. We're rapidly losing our country, and if you're under thirty, you'll see it in your lifetime.

I admit my post this morning may have seemed a bit disjointed, as I was trying to get to work, but wanted to respond to our FRiend, summer. Harsh? To steal a sentiment from the late, great John Paul Jones, I've not yet begun to get harsh. I'm not Sean Hannity, my style is more Michael Savage. Candy coating problems is counterproductive, and this is such a vital and dangerous matter, I have a tendency to not pull punches so as to really get people's attention. I assure both of you fine ladies it's nothing personal.

Are all illegals scumbags? Yes, they are. They're criminals who broke into this nation, just as a burglar breaks into a home. I'm very sorry that they had the misfortune of being born into a wretched, corrupt hellhole in Mexico, Central America, Asia, or wherever, but that doesn't change the fact that they're criminals, and criminals are scumbags. hence my name for them, illegal scumbag aliens. We'd all like a better life for ourselves and our families, but we've not yet taken to knocking off liquor stores in order to achieve it, have we?

"That said, I'm very frustrated that we don't seem able to enforce our borders and immigration laws. But this deplorable situation didn't start with GW or Jeb."

Its more like we're not willing to uphold our immigration laws. You're absolutely correct that the problem didn't start with the Gov or the Prez, but that doesn't excuse them from not doing anything to correct it, and it sure as heck doesn't give them an excuse for making the matter worse (as in, granting amnesty and/or giving the scumbag, diseased vermin drivers' licenses).

"They are here. Florida estimates 400,000 illegals. Throughout the country the estimates are 10 million. Do you think it is possible to deport 10 million people? I don't think it is possible."

Again, it's not a matter of it being possible or not, it's a matter of We The Sheeple not being willing to do anything about it. Not only should we find them, round them up, and deport them with the warning that if they're found here again, it'll be 25 years at hard labor, but if we don't, IMHO it will be the downfall of our nation as we know it. Heck, it already is. Ask yourself if our nation today resembles in any way the nation in which you were raised. Then ask yourself why it has changed. Illegal scumbag aliens have a lot to do with it. Now look 20-25 years into the future, at the nation your kids or grandkids are going to inherit. I shudder to think of what its going to be like.

"It requires a lot of thoughtful discussion. We are talking about human beings, the majority of whom just want a better life for their families."

I couldn't care less about a bunch of disease ridden (especially tuberculosis) criminals wanting to better their lives and provide for their families. I want Americans to be able to better themselves and provide for their families. Americans used to be able to live well, and support families on the salaries they earned in various construction jobs. I personally have seen the effect of illegal scumbag aliens on the telecom cabling industry. They're not just taking "jobs Americans won't do"...they're taking jobs that Americans used to support themselves and their families on. No, I'm not excusing the scumbags who hire them, either...they should be deported right along with their illegal scumbag alien employees.

"Last week in Miami, I rode in a cab driven by a Brazilian (now a citizen). He had advanced degrees in Economics, and had taught in Chicago for a time. He is going home to Brazil, because his wife of 3 years overstayed her visa by 2 months, and is now, in his words, persona non grata. She was stopped at the Miami airport last year, and sent back within 3 hours.

I felt sad for him - he had played by the rules since 1992, and his wife somehow goofed up the red tape."

Yeah, life deals us all the crap hand at times, but regardless of how sorry we feel for people, we shouldn't let our emotions lead us astray. The cold, hard, fact of the matter is that illegal immigration is sapping us of tax revenue, our American culture, and reintroducing and spreading diseases we long ago got a handle on. Perhaps most dangerous is that they're getting in through our nation's wide open back and front doors, along with the drug runners and their poisons, and terrorists and their weapons.

I have no problem with legal immigrants, in fact I welcome them to come here, learn our history, learn our language, work hard, raise their families to love America, and to be productive members of society. But criminals are criminals, regardless if they're breaking into your home to steal your silver and jewelry, or breaking into our nation to steal our tax dollars and drive wages down.

Harsh? No, ma'am...we haven't seen harsh yet. But we will before long.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

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