New York Considers One-Year Driving Permits for Immigrants
/- Originally published in The New York Times September 26, 2004
By NINA BERNSTEIN
The New York Department of Motor Vehicles is reviewing a proposal for a limited ''Immigrant Driver Permit'' that could allow hundreds of thousands of drivers now facing license suspension to stay on the road legally.
The proposal comes from Fernando Mateo, a businessman with Republican Party ties who heads a Hispanic organization. But it is already opposed by the leaders of other immigrant groups. They point to problems with a similar two-tier licensing scheme adopted in Tennessee earlier this year and warn that it could lead to more deportations.
Mr. Mateo, who is president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers and of the New York-based umbrella group Hispanics Across America, said he plans to describe the permit in more detail tomorrow morning on the steps of City Hall. Department officials confirmed Friday that they were reviewing it.
In an interview, Mr. Mateo characterized the proposal as a compromise. The new permit, he said, would not be valid for identification, would expire every year and would be available only to those who surrendered a current license.
''We're not asking for newcomers to get it,'' said Mr. Mateo, who was a speaker at the Republican National Convention and said he had found Gov. George E. Pataki receptive to his idea. ''You're not going to able to use this document to travel, to open up a bank account, to basically threaten this country's security.''
But Gouri Sadhwani, executive director of the New York Civic Participation Project, an immigrant and labor union advocacy group that has been protesting a state license crackdown, said such a permit would in effect identify the bearer as an immigrant without legal status, opening the door to arrest and deportation.
''This is not a solution,'' she said.
As of last week, state officials had already suspended 1,700 driving licenses, and almost 300,000 more could face suspension for lack of verifiable Social Security numbers. State officials said the crackdown had been a means of ferreting out fraud and foiling would-be terrorists. Immigrant advocates have denounced the policy as discriminatory against noncitizens and dangerous to highway safety.
Late last month, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a federal lawsuit against the crackdown. The suit charges that the policy usurps federal responsibility for immigration, oversteps state law on issuing licenses and ignores due process.
Mr. Mateo and Ms. Sadhwani both called for a blue-ribbon commission to study the issue. Mr. Mateo warned that many New York drivers facing license suspension for lack of a Social Security number are already obtaining licenses fraudulently in states with lesser requirements.
One such driver, Jose, who would give only his first name for fear of deportation, described the method in a telephone interview. About three months ago, he said, he rented a post office box in Michigan, drove to Detroit and, claiming to have moved to the state, turned in his New York license for a Michigan one.
Jose, 23, said he did so out of desperation, to keep his $300-a-week job as a painter. He supports his five brothers and sisters back in Mexico and his 4-year-old American-born son. He left Mexico almost nine years ago, starting work at 15.
''I'm the oldest,'' Jose said. ''That's why I had to come here, so my brothers can go to school.''
Since 9/11, many states have struggled with conflicts between efforts to tighten requirements for licenses, which increasingly serve as a national form of identification, and efforts to protect the driving privileges of longtime immigrant workers, despite their illegal status.
Tyler Moran, a policy analyst for the National Immigration Law Center, said many states in search of a compromise were watching Tennessee, the only state to adopt a two-tier scheme like the one Mr. Mateo is proposing for New York. But within weeks of enactment July 1, Ms. Moran said, groups that had advocated an end to licenses for illegal immigrants have assailed it, even as immigration advocates have said it has served as a tool for racial and ethnic discrimination.
One of the biggest problems is that, like New York law, Tennessee statutes hold that drivers stopped for a traffic offense or other violation can be taken into custody if, in the opinion of the officer, they lack adequate identification.
Before the new law, anyone who could prove Tennessee residency was eligible for a driver's license, regardless of immigration status. Now, licenses are reserved for those who can prove American citizenship or lawful permanent residence; all others -- including some residents on legal, temporary visas -- can apply only for the certificate, which expires every year.
The League of United Latin American Citizens, a Hispanic advocacy group, has sued in federal court to stop Tennessee from carrying out the law, charging it violates the Constitution by discriminating against foreign-born and Hispanic residents.
That suit, seeking class-action status, charges that three Nashville plaintiffs were denied regular licenses by clerks who belittled and insulted them, confiscated their identification documents and, in one case, demanded that a Puerto Rican man name the colors of the commonwealth's flag to prove that he was an American.
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