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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    N.M. - Bishops oppose driver’s privilege card proposal for undocumented immigrants

    By Deborah Baker / Journal Staff Writer
    Friday, November 6th, 2015 at 5:25pm

    Roman Catholic bishops are opposed to the idea of New Mexico’s issuing driver’s privilege cards, rather than driver’s licenses, to immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally, a spokesman says.

    The bishops would reject legislation in the 2016 session that would create a tiered system of regular licenses and driver’s privilege cards, spokesman Allen Sanchez told the Journal this week.

    “We’d lose very important ground for the undocumented immigrants,” said Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops.

    A driving privilege card “immediately identifies them as a person vulnerable to be taken advantage of,” he said.

    The proposal is being pushed by a Republican lawmaker close to the administration of GOP Gov. Susana Martinez, but it’s not clear whether it would have her backing next year.

    She has opposed such proposals in previous years — for reasons different from the bishops’ — although during this year’s legislative session her office appeared to be open to it in behind-the-scenes discussions with lawmakers.

    The state’s three bishops have been a forceful presence at the Legislature on a range of issues, including immigrants’ rights.

    They’ve opposed Martinez’s efforts over the past five years to repeal the 2003 law that allows the issuance of driver’s licenses to immigrants who are in the country illegally.

    The tiered system of driver’s licenses and privilege cards — a system based on Utah’s — has been proposed as a way for the state to comply with the federal Real ID law as the government threatens to clamp down on the use of New Mexico licenses for getting into federal facilities and onto airplanes.

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently denied the state’s latest request for an extension until October 2016.

    New Mexico’s current licensing system doesn’t comply in part because the Real ID law, which set federal standards for state-issued driver’s licenses, requires license holders to have legal residence.

    Sanchez said the bishops support a different two-tier system, which easily passed the Democratic-controlled state Senate this year with bipartisan backing but was opposed by Martinez and was not taken up by the Republican-controlled House.

    It would have created Real ID-compliant licenses for those who could prove their legal presence here, and noncompliant licenses for those who couldn’t, or who didn’t want to be part of the Real ID system.

    “The Utah permit takes us backward,” Sanchez said. Presenting cards, rather than licenses, for ID purposes — to prospective landlords, for example, or at businesses — would signal that the cardholders were not here legally and could open them to exploitation, he added.

    The Utah model is being proposed by Rep. Paul Pacheco, R-Albuquerque, who has sponsored the governor’s repeal bill in the past.

    Asked this week whether it had Martinez’s support, her spokesman said the governor “is willing to work across the aisle, but that would have to include a true two-tier system” — in other words, a second tier with driving privilege cards, not licenses — “and it would have to stop giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.”

    The Utah model has been brought up for discussion in previous years by legislators and rejected by Martinez.

    In 2011, she said New Mexicans “don’t want the Utah model” because they only want people who are in the country and state legally to be licensed to drive.

    In 2012, she warned she would veto any legislation that allowed immigrants here illegally to legally drive in New Mexico.


    http://www.abqjournal.com/672152/pol...mmigrants.html
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  2. #2
    Administrator ALIPAC's Avatar
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    “We’d lose very important ground for the undocumented immigrants,” said Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops.
    This is a fine example of why we are supposed to have separation of church and state in America!

    W
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