Replies

I started thinking about a different focus because of this part of Gov Bush's response to this question about benefits:

[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.

The first paragraph above, has others have already pointed out, makes little sense in that (1) Non-English speaking applicants for a driving test are likely to fail, and as far as I know, road signs in FL are not in Spanish; (2) insurance is not something desired by this group of drivers due to cost; (3) insurance will not be available to this group of drivers due to high cost; and (4) if you are in an accident with such a driver, who is illegally working somewhere picking fruit for a living, your chances of recovering anything are nill, with or without this new bill from Gov Bush, due to #2 and #3 above.

That said, what are the benefits to the subject driver who might actually be able to get insurance? I don't see any, except maybe a somewhat the potential for a somewhat higher paying minimum wage type job in the transportation business, as others mentioned, delivering pizzas, etc.

And that brings me to what I think is the real issue here: the employers who are hiring these undocumented, illegal workers in this country.

Are these workers coming to FL to be tourists and pay hotel tx and enjoy our beachers? I think not. They are coming here to work.

So, if the individual worker is illegal, what about the employer hiring that individual? That employer is complicit in the act as well.

We are discussing these undocumented / illegal alien workers as if they hold some sort of magical key to the real "benefit" of this program that I can identify, which is in terms of law enforcement, and that benefit concerns a new database of these undocumented workers.

Should the individual worker be responsible for mounds of documents to enter a system providing little benefit for him or her?

Or, should the responsibility rest with the employer for at least beginning the process of providing that information into a database, since the employer, too, is part of the illegal act in allowing that non-tourist worker to be here?

Right now, in the academic world, the situation is somewhat analagous in that universities and colleges hosting international students must relay mounds of information about foreign students, into a new data base, which was never required before, nor existed before. The government did not say: "Hey, students, when you have a chance, go over to the student center and input all this info yourself." Instead, the government required the universities to do it, and in that same vein, I think the government should be requiring employers to do it, under much higher penalties of law against the employer.

(Yes, I know I may be flamed here.)

So, where does that leave us now? With a data base full of now "documented" illegal aliens - and that's it?

I think the subsequent "reforms" in this matter should go to the heart of this problem, which involves the method by which one obtains US citizenship, to help these people either move toward becoming citizens, or, sending them back home.

There are plenty of others who would like to come in thie place, and work while trying for citizenship in a specified time frame.

Maybe such reforms could thereby open the door, to all, but result in more actual citizens and less illegals, because every illegal would either be on their way to becoming a citizen, or, on their way home.

Also, as one poster mentioned, there are some very unfair situations right now involving illegals, and the one that comes to my mind all the time involves children. They are here, receiving their free public education through grade 12, but when they graduate high school and turn 18, suddenly they are up for deportation if they are not yet legal -- even if they have won a scholarship to an American college and demonstrated promise and lived most of their lives here. I don't understand why this situation exists, in that such a student could pass any English and history test for citizenship beginning probably at age 14. More emphasis on becoming citizens is needed for these kids who are on their way to making important contributions to our country.

OK, that's it. I am sure I said something here that sounds ridiculous to someone, so I will just call it a night.