http://www.wxii12.com/news/13933559/det ... 12007&ts=H

Hispanic Drivers Accuse DMV Of Discrimination

POSTED: 4:57 pm EDT August 20, 2007
UPDATED: 6:09 pm EDT August 20, 2007

HIGH POINT, N.C. -- For years, North Carolina's Department of Motor Vehicles was considered an easy place for Hispanic immigrants to get their driver's license.
But several Hispanic drivers now say the Department of Motor Vehicles is discriminating against them.
After getting a ticket for not having a North Carolina driver's license, Amilcar Vargas Mendoza went to the DMV office in High Point to get one.
"I thought, 'It won't be a problem because I'm a U.S. citizen,' you know," he told WXII 12's Bill O'Neil.
Mendoza, originally from Puerto Rico, said he presented DMV officers with his Puerto Rican driver's license and his Social Security card. DMV inspectors told him they believed the driver's license was fake and confiscated his documents.
That was a month ago.
"Now I'm working and I have to depend on other people," Mendoza said. "I don’t drive out of fear (a) cop will stop me and I'll get a ticket I can’t afford to pay."
WXII 12 News contacted the DMV about Mendoza's case last week, and his documents were returned the next day.
"The investigation lasted longer than it should have," a DMV spokesman said. "We're sorry for the inconvenience."
The spokesman said they verified Mendoza's Social Security number but have no way to verify a driver's license issued by Puerto Rico.
When O'Neil asked why the investigation took so long he was told by the spokesman, "Our first concern is to be careful."
Mendoza called it "discrimination and persecution."
The Spanish newspaper Que Pasa has documented other cases in which the DMV confiscated documents from drivers of Hispanic descent.
Mendoza said he still doesn't have a driver's license and won't go back to the High Point office to get one.