Thread: N.J. Immigrants Getting N.C. Licenses

http://beta.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.d ... EWSREC0201
Wednesday, July 20, 2005

N.J. immigrants getting N.C. licenses

By Taft Wireback
Staff Writer
Courts in northern New Jersey are having trouble with fraudulent driver's licenses turning up in the hands of illegal immigrants, but they aren't licenses issued by the Garden State.

They are licenses given by North Carolina to illegal immigrants who live in New Jersey but who come to the Tar Heel State by the busload or vanload to get the document that allows them to drive, work, bank and rent housing, said Sonia Barria, the court administrator for the town of Dover, N.J.

"We ask them. We speak Spanish and we ask them, 'How did you get a license?' " Barria said in a phone interview last week. "They say, 'We went on a bus with a group of people and that is how it happened.' "

Her court confiscates North Carolina licenses from illegal immigrants under the theory "they were probably obtained under false pretenses," said Barria, whose town has 15,115 residents and covers 2 square miles in Morris County.

Barria said the problem has not emerged in serious crimes but usually comes to light after an illegal immigrant is stopped for a traffic violation.

"We have destroyed I don't know how many North Carolina licenses," Barria said. "Right now, we have waiting to be destroyed one, two, three ... 17 that have been confiscated over the last couple of months."

Barria said New Jersey has strict standards for driver's licenses, which she described as "just short of giving blood." By contrast, North Carolina has a reputation for some of the nation's least stringent.

But N.C. Division of Motor Vehicle administrators say they tightened up standards in the past 18 months after starting a program, Operation Stop Fraud.

"The addition of face-recognition technology and the reduction in documents allowed for identification provide extra measures to ensure that the (license) applicants are who they say they are," division spokesman Bill Jones said.

Jones added that North Carolina trains its examiners to spot false documents and that a special office investigates licensing fraud to arrest "those individuals who submit fraudulent documents."

Capt. Robert Kerwick of the Dover Police Department said his town zeroed in on its problem with Tar Heel licenses because police officers noticed cars with North Carolina tags parked night after night in front of dwellings.

"They started documenting these cars," Kerwick said. "They saw a pattern that these people were actually living here and not visiting."

Recently in Greensboro, a federal grand jury indicted a former DMV examiner on charges of issuing 160 fraudulent licenses at the East Market Street office.

An article about the indictment triggered an anonymous e-mail to the News & Record from a resident of Morris County, who complained about the problem in Dover and other courts in that area.

It's hard to determine how far beyond Dover the problem with North Carolina licenses extends, but it's a familiar issue in that section of New Jersey.

Dover's former chief prosecutor, Jim La Sala, said he still deals with illegal immigrants with North Carolina licenses in his new job as prosecutor in a more rural area nearby.

"But now I see them a couple times a month instead of a couple times a week," he said.

Illegal immigrants with Tar Heel licenses also are a problem in Passaic, N.J., 30 miles east of Dover, said Capt. John Kanson of the Passaic Police Department.

"Basically, they are illegals that go to North Carolina for their licenses. Apparently, it's easier to get them in North Carolina," said Kanson, whose community of 67,861 is about 12 miles south of the Lincoln Tunnel to New York City.

A spokeswoman for the New Jersey State Police said she did not know whether there was a statewide problem with illegal immigrants possessing fraudulent North Carolina licenses. But she said a state trooper might not necessarily know that someone he or she stopped on the highway was really a New Jersey resident and not a traveler from North Carolina.

La Sala, the prosecutor, said he also has heard of illegal immigrants going to North Carolina in groups to get fraudulent licenses. Suppliers of fake documents provide them with "whatever documentation they need" he said.

"They will get a van full of immigrants -- eight or nine people or 15 people, depending on the size of the van," La Sala said. "Whatever agency is doing this supplies them with the (counterfeit) utility bills and pay stubs."

Barria, the Dover court administrator, said the town's officers don't invent reasons to stop motorists they suspect of being illegal immigrants but just enforce traffic laws.

"There is always an infraction when they get stopped and then they produce a North Carolina license," she said.

Sometimes when the officer takes their license and asks them, "they can't even say where it is they are supposed to be living in North Carolina," Barria said.

Illegal immigrants with fraudulent North Carolina licenses are charged with misdemeanors such as violating their New Jersey "touring privileges" or providing false documents to a police officer. They face fines that can go as high as $500, La Sala said.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or twireback@news-record.com

added to the ALIPAC Homepage

http://www.alipac.us/article-551-thread-1-0.html

This really gets me where my goat is tied. Our illustrious NC legislators sit back in the comfortable legislative's chairs and discuss everything under the sun and yet they cannot force themselves to tackle a problem of illegals obtaining a NC drivers licenses not only in this state but other illegals coming from other states. They might as well sell them at WalMart. As far as I am concerned, they are the most ineffective bunch of bungling idiots that was ever elected to a public office. They are as blind as the prez on immigration issues and don't appear to have a clue as to what problems illegals create nor even have a clue as to how to address the problem. They, as a group, are on the same level as the prez on illegal immigration........see no evil......hear no evil.......do nothing about it level.

I just wonder what it will take for those idiots in and out of the legislature to get a grip on this issue? I will be glad with someone exposed the money trail on all guilty parties.

Capt. Robert Kerwick of the Dover Police Department said his town zeroed in on its problem with Tar Heel licenses because police officers noticed cars with North Carolina tags parked night after night in front of dwellings

OMG this clears up something I had been wondering for some time! In my small town, which is flooded with illegals, nearly every latino/mexican drives a vehicle with PA tags. While PA is a neighboring state, I know these folks dont live there. If you take a night drive past the rundown apartment complex in which oddles of them live, 9 out of 10 of the cars in the parking lot and the massive overflow on the streets beyond, have PA tags.

Apparently PA must be equally lax in its licensing requirments. Next time I see our chief of police (Chief Lackanoggin) I will be sure to inquire how he and his officers handle this situation when one of these vehicles is pulled over. While I'm sure it would be easy enough for an illegal to get another PA license, I would think (hope) that the vehicles themselves, with their illegally obtained plates, would be subject to impoundment/seizure.

Looks like a have a juicy new mission.

I THINK THAT THE ONLY WAY TO GET THE MASSES ATTENTION
IS TO DO A NATION WIDE BOYCOTT. WE HAVE A PROBLEM IN
OUR AREA WITH ILLEGAL GANGS AND DRUGS.
OUR MEDICAL SYSTEM IS OVER BURDENED WITH TAKING CARE OF
ILLEGALS. IT IS SHOCKING WHEN YOU LEARN THAT AN ILLEGAL CAN GET HEALTH CARE EASIER THAN US CITIZENS THEMSELVES