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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    SF's dangerous policy on unlicensed drivers

    Debra J. Saunders
    Updated 4:33 pm, Friday, January 11, 2013
    SFGate

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials detained Roberto Galo on Wednesday morning. Galo is a legal immigrant but an unlicensed driver who, on Nov. 16, 2010, took a left-hand turn at Harrison and 16th streets. His car struck law student Drew Rosenberg. Witnesses later testified that Galo then backed his car over Rosenberg, who died.

    The law student's father, Don Rosenberg of Westlake Village (Los Angeles County), has been waging a crusade ever since. He's angry at San Francisco's policy, announced by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2009, that shielded unlicensed drivers from an automatic 30-day impoundment of their vehicles. He's furious that Galo was able to retrieve his Chevy the day after police stopped him for driving the wrong way on a street and without a license. That's the car Galo drove into Drew Rosenberg. He's enraged at the judge who reduced a felony manslaughter charge against Galo to a misdemeanor. He can't believe that Galo served only 43 days for the crime.

    "My wife and I really didn't care if he was sentenced to a day," Rosenberg told me in November. "Our focus became: Convict him of the two misdemeanors and deport him. That's a worse punishment than whether he spends a couple of months in jail." Rosenberg has spent months contacting politicians to push the system to act. On Wednesday, ICE did.

    "We took him into custody. We're holding him without bond. We have basically filed the paperwork to initiate removal proceedings," ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice told me. "ICE doesn't have the authority to unilaterally deport someone."

    I have written about Galo in the past few months, but I get no joy in learning of his fate. His children will suffer, and they didn't do anything to deserve it.

    Galo, however, did screw up. He endangered the general public. As a legal immigrant with temporary protective status, he was eligible to apply for a driver's license. He didn't get one. While he was trying to retain legal residency, he flouted California law by driving without a license. He got caught, and he did it again. Someone died.

    Unlicensed driving is not a victimless crime. A recent Department of Motor Vehicles study found that unlicensed drivers are nearly three times as likely as licensed drivers to cause fatal crashes. They're more likely to flee the scene of a crash - which makes them more dangerous.

    "This nonsense has to stop," Rosenberg told me. He is appalled that San Francisco City Hall has gone out of its way to tell illegal immigrants, who cannot apply for a California license, and also all unlicensed drivers, that they can get behind the wheel and get cited by police and their cars won't be impounded.

    Consider the message that Newsom and then-Police Chief (now District Attorney) George Gascón sent when they announced in 2009 that they were behind a policy to allow unlicensed drivers pulled over by police - presumably for a reason - to call friends, who could drive away their cars to avoid an impound.

    San Francisco banned Happy Meals with toys, for health reasons. Newsom pushed a measure that prohibited pharmacies from selling cigarettes, for health reasons. Yet Newsom bestowed his blessing on unlicensed driving, ignoring the clear risk.

    In June, when Gascón charged a bicyclist with felony vehicular manslaughter for speeding through an intersection and killing Sutchi Hui, 71, a press release announced, "This incident could have been avoided and we can do better as a city to avoid these tragic consequences. In order to preserve our diverse transit community, everyone has to follow the rules of the road."

    Gascón also intoned: "This tragic death caused by a bicyclist illustrates the worst-case scenario when traffic laws are not obeyed."

    Gascón's office charged Galo with felony manslaughter. Good. But that happened after he announced the free pass for unlicensed drivers with licensed friends. I called his office to see if he now advocates an end to the impound-lite policy. No answer. Ditto from Mayor Ed Lee's operation.

    Jessica Vaughan of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies believes ICE acted in part because the Rosenbergs pushed to see Galo face consequences for recklessly taking their son's life. How many fatal crashes have there been, Vaughan wonders, that garnered no press coverage, no outrage and no serious consequences?
    License-lite in San Francisco

    Nov. 1, 2009 - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announces a policy to allow unlicensed drivers to avoid an automatic 30-day impound if a licensed driver can drive away their car. Then-Police Chief George Gascón explained the policy was designed to help those "who can't get a driver's license because of their immigration status, as well as those who could not afford driver training.

    June 14, 2010 - Police stop Roberto Galo, 52, for driving the wrong way on a one-way street and driving without a license. A licensed friend was able to retrieve his Chevrolet Cavalier.

    Nov. 16, 2010 - Galo hits and kills Drew Rosenberg during a rush-hour accident.

    Aug. 16, 2012 - A judge sentenced Galo to six months in jail, three years' probation for misdemeanor manslaughter and driving without a license. Galo served 43 days, then was released.

    Jan. 9, 2013 - ICE detained Galo. No comment from Mayor Ed Lee.

    SF's dangerous policy on unlicensed drivers - SFGate
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    ICE Arrests Deportable Unlicensed Driver

    By Jessica Vaughan, January 17, 2013
    Center for Immigration Studies

    Last week ICE arrested Roberto Galo, the unlicensed Honduran who killed a young man named Drew Rosenberg in a traffic crash in November 2010, and is detaining him without bond. Galo's arrest is appropriate but, incredibly, despite the fact that Galo repeatedly violated California driving laws and killed someone, ICE had to make an exception to its policies in order to take him into custody and seek his removal.


    Roberto Galo

    Galo is an illegal immigrant who has been living here legally since the late 1990s under a grant of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Beneficiaries of TPS may apply for driver's licenses; but Galo could not get one because he failed the driving test three times. Under immigration law, Galo no longer qualifies for TPS after having been convicted of two misdemeanors (vehicular manslaughter and unlicensed driving) stemming from his responsibility for the crash that took Drew Rosenberg's life.

    But under current policies, offenders like Galo are not supposed to be put on the path to removal. USCIS, which administers the TPS program, has directed its officers to try to reclassify some misdemeanors as "infractions" in order to allow these offenders to stay.

    Under newly tightened ICE guidelines, ICE agents and officers are directed to arrest only those offenders with at least three misdemeanors. Lesser offenders may be charged only if the offenses involve violence, sexual abuse, drunk driving, weapons, drugs, terrorism, gang activity, and the like. Vehicular manslaughter did not make the list of offenses that this administration considers to be serious enough to result in deportation, especially in combination with the "minor" offense of unlicensed driving. For more on how sanctuary policies in California contributed to this episode, see Debra Saunders' columns in the San Francisco Chronicle.

    Initially, ICE officials told staffers for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who represents Drew Rosenberg's parents in Congress, that they would not consider removing Galo until he applied to renew his TPS, which was good through July 2013, and maybe not even then because his crimes were not serious enough. It took more than two months and many letters, phone calls, and e-mails from Drew's father to get the DHS agencies to apply the law.

    This case illustrates that ICE's guidelines are out of whack with their professed emphasis on public safety and are far too narrowly drawn to produce meaningful immigration law enforcement. Even as ICE claims to have removed more criminals than ever before, it is also releasing more criminals than ever before. Similarly, USCIS seems committed more to bending the rules on behalf of unqualified applicants than on applying the laws.

    Not exactly a confidence-builder leading up to a discussion of "Comprehensive Immigration Reform".

    Moreover, I can't help but wonder if ICE ever considered that imposing such arbitrary and unnecessary thresholds like "three misdemeanors" might have the perverse and unfortunate result of causing some state and local law enforcement agencies to feel like they have to pile on charges when removable aliens are arrested, just to get ICE to exercise its authority and responsibility to enforce immigration law.

    http://oneoldvet.com/

    Man Bites Dog: ICE Arrests Deportable Unlicensed Driver | Center for Immigration Studies
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