Alien driver's license law needs tightening

THE VIOLENT death of a Memphis woman implicated in an alleged conspiracy to issue Tennessee driver's licenses fraudulently continues to pose far more questions than answers. Still, the case of Katherine Smith should prompt state legislators to revisit a new law that allows resident aliens to get licenses - which can help them obtain other identification documents - with greater ease than now seems warranted.

Smith, whose burned body was found this week in her wrecked car in Fayette County, was a veteran examiner at a state license testing center in Memphis. Federal prosecutors charged her last week with taking part in a scheme to provide driver's licenses illegally for at least $1,000 apiece; she reportedly told investigators she had similarly issued licenses previously. She had been scheduled to appear at a court hearing the day after she died.

Prosecutors allege that three of the five other defendants in the case were driven to Memphis from New York to submit license applications that included false data, and that the two remaining defendants helped promote the scheme. Several of the applications had fictitious, "totally untraceable" names, a prosecutor said this week.

Smith's alleged co-conspirators came from Mideast nations. An FBI agent testified that several of them admitted being in the United States illegally and said they had sought Tennessee driver's licenses in part because the state does not require a Social Security number to obtain a license.

State lawmakers approved legislation last year that allows non-U.S. citizens to obtain driver's licenses if they can prove their identity, age and Tennessee residence. Advocates said the measure would encourage legal immigrants to learn state and local traffic laws and pass driver tests instead of driving illegally.

But the law does not require documentation, such as a passport and valid visa, to show that a license applicant is in this country legally. Most other states, including Mississippi and Arkansas, demand proof of legal presence before they issue driver's licenses to aliens. So should Tennessee.

Sponsors of the legislation claimed that Sundquist administration officials had said they were reluctant to impose a new record-keeping burden on overworked license examiners. If that is true, the answer is not to skimp on security, but rather to give the Department of Safety, which operates the state's license testing centers, the resources it needs to do its job properly.

That notion may run counter to the durable notion, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, that state government need never spend money on anything, and surely should not presume to seek tax revenue to do so. But the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on this nation demands re-examination of all sorts of formerly comfortable anti-government slogans.

Strengthening Tennessee driver's license law as it affects non-citizens is not, and should not be, a nativist exercise in immigrant bashing, although some state politicians seem determined to treat it that way. Rather, tightening the law to demand greater proof of identity and legal presence would be a reasonable means of safeguarding homeland security, close to home.

Advocates said the measure would encourage legal immigrants to learn state and local traffic laws and pass driver tests instead of driving illegally..... But the law does not require documentation, such as a passport and valid visa, to show that a license applicant is in this country legally.

This is absolutely the most hairbrained logic imaginable. I think its actually a typo, and that they really meant to encourage illegal "immigrants" to obtain driver's licenses.

Legal immigrants have zero difficulty providing proof of their status: an immigrant visa is stamped right into their passports. And most legal immigrants of proper age do two things in their first weeks within the U.S.: they get a Social Security Number and they obtain either a driver's license or a learner's permit.

Whether illegal aliens do or do not have a driver's license is a complete red herring and a lame excuse for loosening the law. Illegal aliens are guilty of a misdemeanor by being here in the U.S., and then they are guilty again of a felony (in most states) for driving without a license. They shouldn't be on our streets at all.

The underlying problem is that states have no real ability to to assess citizenship or immigration status. We could of course ask the states to begin "profiling" applicants by asking anyone with an accent to produce a valid passport, but that might be a little much in this day and age. Common sense is not exactly in vogue in our federal and state bureaucracies.

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