Thread: WA: A second-class stamp for undocumented immigrants

Posted on Sunday, February 01, 2009

A second-class stamp for undocumented immigrants
Under House Bill 1026, undocumented immigrants wouldn't be allowed to use driver's licenses for ID purposes
by Patrick D. Muir and Melissa Sánchez
Yakima Herald-Republic



YAKIMA, Wash. -- Rosalina Perez drives the speed limit. Exactly.

She checks her mirrors constantly. Has to. She is in the United States illegally and doesn't have a driver's license. She's terrified of being pulled over -- of being discovered and deported.

Perez, 29, doesn't know it, but under current law she's eligible for a license; all that's required is passing the driver's test and proof of residency in the state. Even if the Yakima farm worker did know, she'd be hesitant to apply because that would bring her a little too close to the system.

Perez, like so many illegal immigrants, prefers to stay in the shadows.

They are the fly in the ointment for House Bill 1026, which would require proof of citizenship or legal residency for a regular driver's license. Those without such proof would get a different driver's license than citizens and legal residents. The idea is to keep undocumented immigrants from using driver's licenses to get voter registration cards and social services such as welfare and food stamps, said the bill's sponsor, state Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee.

"You still get to take the test, and you still get a driver's license," he said. "It's just stamped, 'Not valid for identification purposes.'"

Critics doubt the underlying premise that undocumented immigrants are bleeding the social services system. And, from a more practical perspective, it just wouldn't work, they say. Undocumented immigrants who fear deportation won't want a license that essentially tells authorities: "I am not a citizen."

"It is a scarlet letter, and nobody's going to go get a license with that in it," said state Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez-Kenney, D-Seattle, who was raised by migrant worker parents in the Yakima Valley.



People will drive regardless of their immigration status, say Armstrong and the bill's co-sponsors, including Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside. That's why the bill doesn't keep undocumented immigrants from getting driver's licenses; it just prevents them from using the licenses for anything but driving.

"The driver's license can get you a lot of things in this state," Newhouse said.

This is not the first attempt to keep undocumented immigrants from accessing state services. A White Swan man is sponsoring an initiative this year that would require proof of legal status for driver's licenses and almost all social services -- a rerun of a failed initiative from last year run by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, Washingtonians for Immigration Reform and Grassroots of Yakima Valley.

The year before that there was a different initiative, same basic goal. And the same result as backers fell short of getting enough signatures to keep it going.

Questions remain as to whether it's a legitimate issue or just political posturing.

"I'm just going by anecdotal evidence -- stories that people relate to me as that being a problem," Newhouse said.

That immigrants game the system in any sort of serious numbers is an old canard used to appeal to conservative voters, said Tomas Villanueva, a noted advocate for Latino causes in the Yakima Valley, and an active Democratic organizer in Newhouse's 15th Legislative District.

"It's political," he said of the bill. "DSHS already has enough safeguards."

Thomas Shapley, a spokesman for the state Department of Social and Health Services, which administers federal programs such as Medicaid and food stamps as well as state-funded social services, said claims from ineligible immigrants have never been high at all.

"Our economic services administration routinely does reviews and examinations looking for fraud," Shapley said. "And they said claims of citizenship are always at a very low rate. It just isn't an issue for them."

Proof of legal residence isn't a requirement anyway for most social services, he said. It is for the federal Medicaid and food stamps programs, but not for things like child health care, pregnancy care and emergency medical care. Families can often access the food stamp program even if parents are undocumented, because children born in the United States can be eligible.

Basically, it's DSHS practice to help whomever possible whenever possible, Shapley said.

"A kid is in trouble, or a kid is sick, or a mother has kids that don't have enough to eat, or a woman is having a bad pregnancy or some guy got picked up behind the Home Depot to do some work and ends up with a compound fracture," he said. "It doesn't make sense to worry about citizenship. We've got to help people. We've got to fix people."



To Gutierrez-Kenney, the Seattle Democrat with Yakima Valley heritage, the whole DSHS argument is "hogwash, absolute hogwash."

Fernando Olivares, a 28-year-old undocumented truck driver in Yakima, is the sort of person Gutierrez-Kenney believes is a more realistic example.

"If they think we're using our driver's licenses to take advantage of the system, they have it wrong," Olivares said in Spanish. "I don't use government services because I don't have my papers. I'm here illegally. I avoid getting sick or needing help. I don't want to get deported."

Critics of the proposal say undocumented immigrants are often too proud to take state help or too scared to interact with the system. Perez, the Yakima field worker, doesn't even open the door for strangers. A driver's license that flat-out indicates its holder isn't a citizen would exacerbate that, Villanueva said.

And if the idea is to get a better handle on who is in the state, legally and illegally, this would do the opposite, Villanueva said.

The bill will backfire in its attempt to score points with conservative voters, playing into the false belief that undocumented immigrants are ripping them off, he said.

"These kind of moves would end up pushing more people underground," Villanueva said. "They're not going to try to get driver's licenses, and to me that is a matter of public safety."



This bill, though it is limited to driver's licenses, is essentially a question of philosophy -- just how should Washington state treat the hundreds of thousands of immigrants illegally here to toil in its fields.

The bill's backers don't want to come across as heartless; they aren't in favor of cutting off emergency medical care based on immigration status. And they don't want kids to starve for lack of food stamps.

"We should be helping as many people as we can," Newhouse said. "I just think we should be helping people who are citizens of the state first."

Armstrong feels the same way. Though he admitted he was unclear himself on just which state services require citizenship or legal-immigrant status, he fundamentally is opposed to people who aren't even supposed to be here taking money from the state's taxpayers.

"We don't want just anybody showing up and taking state money," Armstrong said.

The other view is that immigrants deserve acknowledgment.

"People need to quit being hypocrites and look at our community, our state, our country," Gutierrez-Kenney said. "It was built by immigrants."

www.yakima-herald.com

a rose by any other name is still a rose.

This is all a load of CR*P. An ITN number is just a substitute SS card in the US. A driver's license is a substitute national ID card.

A diver's license stamped "not a valid form of ID" will still be used as a valid form of ID by whomever wants to accept it.

Either a person is in the US legally or they are not. Either they have valid ID or they do not.

A hard life in another country, a family self-separated by choice, wanting a better life....do not make a person LEGAL in the US. Hell, I want a better life.

A careful driver who goes exactly the speed limit does not a US citizen make, there's a little more involved in it than that.

She checks her mirrors constantly. Has to. She is in the United States illegally and doesn't have a driver's license. She's terrified of being pulled over -- of being discovered and deported.

Perez, 29, doesn't know it, but under current law she's eligible for a license; all that's required is passing the driver's test and proof of residency in the state. Even if the Yakima farm worker did know, she'd be hesitant to apply because that would bring her a little too close to the system.

This only substantiates the fact that they know very well they are here ILLEGALLY and know what they are doing is ILLEGAL!

People need to quit being hypocrites and look at our community, our state, our country," Gutierrez-Kenney said. "It was built by immigrants."

I get tired of being called names when we are in the right!

And yes this country was built by immigrants. WE ALL KNOW THAT NOW THANK U VERY MUCH!
But by LEGAL immigrants and also by people that did other things besides MAKE DEMANDS of a country they have no authority being in.

Critics doubt the underlying premise that undocumented immigrants are bleeding the social services system.

By whose standards? And what critics? Spanish speaking?

If they think we're using our driver's licenses to take advantage of the system, they have it wrong," Olivares said in Spanish. "I don't use government services because I don't have my papers. I'm here illegally. I avoid getting sick or needing help. I don't want to get deported."

Well hello, another ILLEGAL confesses. Until he is pulled over and CRIES he has been PROFILED!!!!!

WOOHOO.I am an activist 3 now!

Originally Posted by uniteasone

WOOHOO.I am an activist 3 now!

Congrats.

Originally Posted by uniteasone

WOOHOO.I am an activist 3 now!