Posted on 09/05/2003 9:50:52 PM PDT by Dallas59
DANA POINT Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday criticized Gov. Gray Davis' support of a bill granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, the same day the governor signed the landmark legislation.
Historic Recall Election The Latest Developments Federal Panel in San Jose OK's Oct. 7 Recall Vote Habrían retirado último obstáculo para votación en California
Schwarzenegger, the leading Republican candidate in the Oct. 7 recall election, said Davis flip-flopped on his support for the bill and said it raises security concerns. The state attorney general's office on Friday raised similar concerns with the bill.
Schwarzenegger said he would try to repeal it if he is elected.
"As you know, our own governor was vividly against this a few months ago," Schwarzenegger said after a speech to the California Chamber of Commerce. "Now it's election time-- of course everything changes."
Granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants has become a central campaign issue in recent days as candidates sought to stake their ground on immigration-related matters. On Thursday, Schwarzenegger, a native of Austria who spoke little English when he arrived in the United States in 1968, said no candidate was as sympathetic to the plight of immigrants as he is.
"I don't need to get a lesson from anyone else about immigration because I've been there," he told The Associated Press.
Davis signed the bill before hundreds of cheering supporters at a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Los Angeles. The predominantly Hispanic crowd waved mostly U.S. flags as well as Mexican flags and those from various Central American countries.
"If you are going to contribute to our economy, you have the right to drive to work," he said afterward. "Everyone benefits by having drivers on the road who know the rules of the road and presumably be a safer driver."
Earlier, he defended his decision to allow the licenses, a privilege he said also is granted in Nevada and New Mexico.
"I think we have to be honest about our dependency on people to do jobs Americans will not," Davis said.
The governor said immigrants were likely to get behind the wheel, anyway. With a license, they would at least have to pass a driving test, he said.
The bill the governor signed will take effect Jan. 1. It will help illegal immigrants obtain licenses by allowing them to submit a federal taxpayer identification number or some other state-approved form of identification to the Department of Motor Vehicles, instead of a Social Security number.
Davis has vetoed two similar bills since he became governor, citing law enforcement's concerns about the legislation, but during a campaign rally last month said he would sign this version.
Critics said the governor was merely pandering to Hispanic voters, who account for about 16 percent of all registered voters statewide.
The bill did not contain features the governor demanded earlier, such as requirements that applicants pass criminal background checks and be in the process of obtaining legal documentation.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer withdrew his support of the bill this week after a provision was removed that required a high-tech identification system, known as biometric fingerprinting. Lockyer also is concerned that the new law creates a loophole that could make it easier for illegal immigrants to get guns if they lie on firearms application that they are citizens, spokeswoman Hallye Jordan said.
"The drivers' licenses have provide a safeguard in the past," Jordan said. "Now, if you have a drivers' license, there's no way to tell you are not a legal citizen. If you lie and say you are, California will have no way of rebutting that."
Steve Maviglio, a Davis spokesman, said millions of California residents already have licenses but aren't U.S. citizens; instead they're residents with a green card or who are working toward citizenship.
A group of conservative Republicans, including Sen. Tom McClintock, planned to launch a ballot initiative to overturn the law, said Jeff Evans, a spokesman for a group called Save Our License.
Also Friday, about 100 protesters rallied outside Schwarzenegger's new campaign office in Santa Monica, upset at what they said were disparaging comments about women attributed to him in a series of magazine interviews. In a 1977 interview, for example, the then-29-year-old bodybuilding champion discussed his sexual exploits and a group sex encounter in a Venice gym.
At one point, the organization, CODEPINK, unfurled a pink banner from a building across the street from the office that read, "Arnold, you're terminated."
"He owes an apology to women he has abused and the women of California," said Karen Pomer, a spokeswoman for the group.
A spokesman for Schwarzenegger dismissed the group's allegations as untrue and said the comments were taken out of context.
The actor appeared at the office with his wife, Maria Shriver, who expressed support for her husband. The couple left after greeting some of the estimated 300 volunteers at the event.
Earlier in the day, a panel of three federal judges refused to postpone the Oct. 7 recall election, removing one of its last legal barriers.
The panel in San Jose acted after the U.S. Justice Department made a formal determination that Monterey County's hurriedly assembled balloting plans did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Activists said the changes, which included a reduction in the number of polling places, disenfranchised minority voters.
An ACLU lawsuit challenging the use of punch-card ballots in six counties, including Los Angeles, is still pending in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A hearing is scheduled Sept. 11.
Copyright © 2003 KABC-TV and the Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Last Updated: Sep 5, 2003
Right on, GSGOP. Victor Davis Hanson has a lot to say about this. The left and the right needs to come together and solve the problem with a bipartisan approach.
And it's not inhumane to stop illegal immigration, even by force. We're hurting economies on both sides of the border with what we're doing, and workers, legal businesses, and our national security are suffering because of it. Legal immigrants and other people interested in building their status on hard work also suffer.
Davis will be proving his lack of fitness to serve as our governor right up until the day he is recalled and replaced. I just hope he is replaced by a Republican who can use a veto pen.
seems the next logical step would be voter registration for the illegals.
....for $5.00 per hour.
Labor is a supply and demand issue. If you put up a sign that says, "Hiring labor at $5.00 per hour," you won't get too many takers. Change the dollar amount to $10.00 or $12.00 and the response from applicants improves dramatically.
What the traitorous politicians and businessmen in America have done is to destroy the normal supply/demand forces by flooding the country with desperately poor people, mostly from Mexico. Because they are here illegally, they can be exploited and abused and will remain silent.
There are plenty of unemployed Americans who are willing to work but they understandably will not work for $5.00 per hour. The only way anyone can live on that is to live 25 to a house and sleep on the floor which is exactly the way illegal immigrants live.
The future for working Americans is a dramatically lower standard of living because our leaders in this country are mostly rich and have no loyalty to citizenship or to their country. They will continue to sell out their countrymen and their country as long as the last dollar left in America goes in their own pockets.
This is the inevitable result of the dollar being worshipped before all else - before God, family and country.
To the calloused who cheer the forces of such exploitation, I point out no people will stand idly by for long and let themselves be chopped up economically. There will be an ugly backlash of a magnitude not seen in America before. It may destroy the entire system of government in this country. You cannot throw millions of decent people into the streets without a job and expect them to remain calm.
Anyone who cheers the increasing joblessness of Americans in the interest of global trade is no patriot. Such people ought to hit the road to foreign countries because they are not fit to share the same soil with those who refuse to sell out their countrymen. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for wanting to piss away their own country's prosperity for an extra twenty-five cents. They have no shame and see nothing wrong. Therein lies the problem. We'll remember them and what they have said and done.
Davis has just committed a criminally negligent breach of national security
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New regulations for noncitizens create run on driver's licenses(Is Your State Doing it's Part?)
The Miami Herald ^ | 12-14-01 | LESLEY CLARK, TERE FIGUERAS AND HANNAH SAMPSON
Posted on 12/14/2001 10:14 PM EST by Rome2000
TALLAHASSEE -- Swamped with immigrants rushing to obtain driver's licenses before new anti-terrorism regulations go into effect, the state Thursday hurried to immediately impose the new rules, restricting noncitizens to just four driver's license offices in South Florida.
The change created chaos across Miami-Dade and Broward counties, as confused would-be drivers traveled from one licensing office to another, trying to find the ones that handle noncitizen applications. At one point Thursday, Florida Highway Patrol troopers were summoned for crowd control.
``They were angry because they couldn't get a license on the spot,'' said Sandra Lambert, director of the driver's license division at the state Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles.
The state had been planning to enact the new restrictions next week, but quickly moved up the schedule when it became apparent that people were trying to dodge the change, Lambert said.
``We realized if we waited any longer, hundreds more old-style licenses could be issued,'' she said.
Under the new rules, noncitizens -- including those holding permanent residency ``green cards'' -- who apply for new licenses will get 30-day paper permits while their identification documents are checked. If cleared, they will be mailed licenses that expire at the same time as their visas. Also, noncitizens will no longer be able to renew their licenses or report address changes over the telephone or the Internet.
LIMITED OFFICES
And they can no longer go to any driver's license office. Instead, they can conduct business at only two offices in Miami-Dade and two in Broward, where staffers have been trained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to recognize altered or counterfeit documents. Those offices also have been supplied with equipment so that the department can keep copies of the documents. Six other offices will accommodate noncitizens outside of South Florida.
Lambert said the department plans to add more offices to handle noncitizen applications as employees undergo training.
There are no estimates on the numbers of non-U.S. citizens in South Florida, though the figure for permanent resident aliens is believed to number in the tens of thousands in Miami-Dade and Broward. And there are about 30,000 to 40,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans in South Florida with temporary residence and work permits that expire in July 2002.
RUN ON LICENSES
The state agency was tipped off to the run on licenses when they stocked the new application forms in the four South Florida offices on Saturday. As people learned this week that those four offices would give noncitizens only the temporary licenses, they began to flock to the other ones, Lambert said.
``People realized you had to wait to be mailed a [permanent] license at those offices, but word spread that you can get a driver's license on the spot in the other offices,'' she said. ``We had huge lines in the other offices.''
The new regulations were developed afterthe Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to make sure that Florida driver's licenses expire at the same time as foreigner's visas. The changes link the duration of driver's licenses to the expiration of visas and give driver's license officials time to check identification.
``The thinking is that if you no longer have a legal presence in the country, you no longer should be entitled to a driver's license,'' Lambert said.
But the abrupt switch created confusion.
At one of the two offices in Miami-Dade where noncitizens could get licenses, hopeful drivers stretched 40 deep out the front door, spilling into the parking lot.
``I cannot believe this, '' said Peruvian Cintia Celi, sitting in the crowded waiting room at the department's central Miami office at 901 NW 39th Ave., which along with the office at 12601 NW 42nd Ave. in Opa-locka is authorized to handle noncitizen applications.
Celi, who has lived in Coral Gables since she was a teen, had one word to sum up a day spent reinstating her license: ``Hell.''
``I went to a place by my house, and they sent me here,'' said Celi, 25. ``But they didn't tell me I had to bring papers, so I had to go back. Lines all day.''
300 REFERRALS
The office received about 300 referrals from other locations Thursday, said office manager Maritza Zea. That's about twice the numbers her workers see in a typical day. Though the number of employees had been increased to handle the expected influx, there was a backlog by mid-afternoon.
``It's chaos,'' Zea said. ``Just having to make people understand what they need and why they need it.''
In Broward, at the bureau on Pembroke Road and University Drive in Pembroke Pines, lines were not as long as they were last month, according to one mother and daughter who have made three trips to the bureau in recent weeks.
``The last couple of times we were here it has been outrageous,'' said Lin Trahan of Cooper City, whose daughter Sarah, 16, was waiting to get her license.
Workers at the bureau told the two they could try other locations that serve only U.S. citizens if they wanted to avoid longer lines, but the Pembroke Pines location was the most convenient.
It wasn't convenient for Jose Benitez, a permanent resident from Nicaragua. Benitez, a mechanic, lives in Miami and traveled with friend Xilena Mariano to three different offices Thursday.
The first, on Coral Reef Drive in South Miami-Dade, didn't give licenses to noncitizens. The second, on LeJeune Road, said it was too busy, so Benitez, who has lived in the country for 17 years, went to Pembroke Pines to renew his license. ``This is very different than what we're used to,'' Mariano said.
Chinese-born Neo Mi didn't have to renew his license -- yet. He was accompanying a fellow countrywoman as she took her test at the Northwest 39th Avenue office.
``She went in there at 8 a.m.,'' he said at 3 p.m, waiting in the crowded parking lot. ``I haven't seen her since.''
In an amazing display of common sense, the State of Florida will now actually stop issuing drivers licenses to illegal aliens.
How many other States will follow suit?
And what is the Democrat position on this issue?
Happened two blocks from my house. Two gardeners? in an old pickup pulling small trailer pulled across highway 74 in front of Volvo. Volvo hit them broadside burst into flames burning driver to death.
Occupants of pickup are AOL!
WOW - who ever nicknamed this idiot Doofus got it perfectly correct.
Hey DOOFUS, (knock, knock, knock) anybody in there? Driving is a privilege, not a right. What a moron you are!
That would solve three problems. It would prevent unsafe drivers from getting licenses. It would eliminate uninsured drivers and ease traffic by about 25%. Also any illegal alien or even any legal resident who was convicted of driving without a license would be subject to deportation as a felon.
I don't particularly mind illegal aliens having licenses. The fact of the matter is that 95% of them have no insurance. That is what bothers me. It seems that everyone I know that has had an accident lately had to rely on their unisured motorist policy to get their cars fixed. I just took a deposition of an illegal alien the other day who admitted that she had no license (not even a Mexican License), that she had previously been convicted of being involved in an accident while being uninsured and having no license, and who drove her uninsured car to the deposition.
If we could get these people off the roads, then maybe we wouldn't have such high insurance rates and heavy traffic in California.
One Chance to Kill SB60 (Illegal Drivers Licenses), Says McClintock
(CA FReeper Alert, PLEASE READ)
Tom McClintock, KRLA radio, KABC radio | truthkeeper
Posted on 09/05/2003 4:59 PM PDT by truthkeeper
Okay, a little voice told me to put up this thread...
Since I heard Sen. McClintock explain this plan twice in two days, during two different radio station interviews, I thought it would be a good idea to synopsis it. (I think is an excellent idea.)As we have all pretty much figured, the way to do something about the passage of the illegal alien driver's license law, which will be signed any moment by our traitorous, corrupt governor, lies in our "ruby slippers," our wonderful referendum process. According to McClintock, the California Republican Assembly (a group which endorsed him, and the largest of its kind in California), already is buzzing about a plan to challenge the new law "once Davis's pen hits the paper." I have already checked their website and found nothing as of yet; however, McClintock says as soon as he has more information it will be linked on his website. (Let's keep watching for this.)
Here's how it would work. Signatures on petitions would be gathered as with the recall; however, the good news is that he said only a relatively small number would be required. (Off the top of his head, McClintock didn't know the exact amount, but he thought only about 1/4 or 1/5 the amount required for the recall. It should be a lead pipe cinch to get this on this one, IMHO.)
Of course, the signatures need to be collected in the proper, legal manner - I don't have the details to post at this time, but we can get that info readily - and then appropriately forwarded. The good news, according to Sen. McClintock, is that as soon as they are collected and forwarded as required by law, this ridiculous new law MUST BE IMMEDIATELY STAYED UNTIL THE NEXT SCHEDULED ELECTION. That would be MARCH 2004 if we can get the signatures quickly enough. And remember, this idiotic law doesn't go into effect until Jan. 1, 2004. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could beat it to the punch entirely? Does anyone seriously have any doubts we'd knock this thing out in a referendum election?
CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread
To all of the morons who keep saying there isn't a dimes worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans. Davis has just committed a criminally negligent breach of national security
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It's going to be like here --- expect very high liability insurance rates. If a driver from Mexico here hits you --- they never have insurance so your insurance pays if you have comprehensive --- if you cause the accident, the driver from Mexico with no insurance has the right to sue you for whatever they can get and your insurance pays. Mexicans know full well they don't need insurance --- it's not politically correct to expect them to buy it --- the cops here don't even bother giving them citations for not having it.
Hatch now needs to meet with taxpaying Americans (like he met with the handout-seeking illegals) and explain to us why we should all be gouged for more taxes to pay for those non citizens who expect to use our colleges.
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