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The guy substituting for Rush the other day (I can't remember his name) said that about 30 other states already have this drivers license for illegals law. Is that true? I find it hard to believe.
I want to know when the first lawsuit is filed against this!
The only reason they do menial jobs is because they are being exploited by the people who hire them - their employers are taking advantage of their position of powerlessness and vulnerability stemming from their fear of discovery, making them incapable of negotiating meaningfully for better jobs or better pay.
It always sticks in my craw when politicians publically trot out this canard, it just emphasizes how the labor exploitation of illegal immigrants has become so common and so universally ignored by law enforcement that it's not even shameful anymore, that our own state's government is willfully and actively abetting it.
This is news to us real citizens who never had the right to drive anywhere.
Davis has just committed a criminally negligent breach of national security
FreeRepublic.com "A Conservative News Forum"
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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!
"If you are going to contribute to our economy, you have the right to drive to work," he said afterward.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.
1) A federal lawsuit on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. A ruling against states giving DL's to illegals would be excellent and would affect at least 30+ otyher states with similar outrageous laws.
2) A California initiative to rescind the law. A string orf lawsuits will follow it's passing, to be sure.
Either way, this law is a disaster for California AND the USA and will be with us for a long time, and our national security will be greatly weakened.
Hey Davis, have a heart attack you b*stard.
Interesting.
I think we have to be honest about the majority of voters in California being complete, freaking retards who are so obviously out to lunch and stupid that this bill should have been one which stripped them of their drivers licenses.
People stupid enough to put this a$$hole in office are clearly too stupid to drive a motor vehicle with even a minimum amount of due diligence.