Thread: Immigrants In Country Illegally Worry About Sharing Of Personal Information

Immigrants In Country Illegally Worry About Sharing Of Personal Information



January 21, 20178:16 AM ET

California has issued driver's licenses to thousands of people living in the country illegally. Now some of those license-holders worry their personal information could be shared with federal authorities.

Twelve states and the District of Columbia allow residents who are in the United States illegally to obtain driver's licenses. California passed its law two years ago. Now more than 800,000 immigrants have taken advantage of that right. But with the arrival of President Trump to power, some of those license holders worry that their private information could be used against them. NPR's Richard Gonzales reports.

RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: If you want to know what difference a driver's license makes, just ask 47-year-old Ramon Perez. The gregarious carpet layer from San Jose, Calif., says it brings him peace of mind.

RAMON PEREZ: You can have a better car, better life. You can go to the bank. Somebody stop you. Hey, here's my license. If the kids want to go to Disneyland, you can take them because you have a license. And you're not afraid at all that the police is behind me.

GONZALES: Perez is sitting in the office of an immigration advocacy group in San Jose called SIREN. That stands for Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network. In a nearby room, about a dozen clients are gathered as community organizer Erica Leyva launches a know-your-rights workshop.

ERICA LEYVA: (Speaking Spanish).

GONZALES: She's talking about the California law, AB 60, that has allowed 822,000 undocumented residents to get a driver's license. State officials say they expect to eventually issue almost a million and a half licenses. Diana Morales, an attorney for SIREN, says after the election of Donald Trump, a lot of the agency's clients wonder whether having that license would make it easier for the federal government to find and deport them. And she says they have a lot of questions.

DIANA MORALES: How is this going to affect me? Am I going to have my driver's license taken away now now that we have an incoming president that says that he does not agree with me being here?

GONZALES: One man who asked that we only identify him by his first name, Macario, says he's concerned that the feds will take the state information and use it to deport him.

MACARIO: You know, federal government can do that. They have several means to do that. And, yes, I'm afraid.

GONZALES: That's a concern in several other jurisdictions where undocumented residents can get a driver's license or an ID card. In New York, there's an ongoing debate over whether the city should destroy the personal-information records of undocumented residents who carry a municipal ID card. Some fear that information could be misused by the government.

California officials say they protect the personal information of all license holders. But federal authorities, including immigration officials, can still get basic information such as the name, address, gender, date of birth or the license number. Artemio Armenta is a spokesman for the state DMV.

ARTEMIO ARMENTA: But none of this information includes any AB 60 identifier or legal status.

GONZALES: In other words, California's database doesn't distinguish between citizens and people in this country without authorization. And that's exactly the problem, says Ira
Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for Immigration Reform or FAIR, a group that advocates immigration limits. He says California has a record of shielding immigrants who are in this country illegally.

IRA MEHLMAN: It wouldn't surprise me that California built this into the system in the first place - that California built in the safeguards to ensure that the records couldn't be searched.

GONZALES: Still, DMV officials say the licenses issued to people in this country illegally are different. They clearly state that it is not acceptable for official federal purposes and can't be used to get a job, register to vote or any public benefit. And state lawmakers already have said they will resist any attempt by the new administration to target immigrants in California. Richard Gonzales, NPR News, San Francisco.

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/21/510935...al-information

Sell up, pack up and get out.

No path to citizenship...no amnesty!

Our government has lied to us for decades, we are putting our foot down and we want them ALL out...no more deals.

Not only COULD the Government use this info... they SHOULD! We The People need to have Whistle Blower hotlines where we can turn people in! Every American business that closed up due to being under-bid by illegals need this also! I know so many who were denied THEIR right to own a business because illegals ran them out. How do you compete when illegals have no overhead?

Absolutely, nomas. The federal government needs to use every means and data source available to achieve the goal of deportation on the earliest possible date. In the meantime, this data can be used to cut off benefits they shouldn't have access to in the first place.

Don't even get me started on the benefit thing!!! I do a slow burn EVERY time I go grocery shopping and see women with full carts of JUNK whip out their EBT card. Then you see them in the parking lot loading up the biggest baddest BRAND NEW SUV's. It's disheartening to know you work your ass off and can't afford half of what they flaunt!

Yes that information is going to be used mister and any other databases we have like the IRS to locate any and all illegal aliens in this country for deportation and the cutting off of all benefits they are not entitled to. Your own greedy fault you got yourselves on the radar.

Originally Posted by nomas

Don't even get me started on the benefit thing!!! I do a slow burn EVERY time I go grocery shopping and see women with full carts of JUNK whip out their EBT card. Then you see them in the parking lot loading up the biggest baddest BRAND NEW SUV's. It's disheartening to know you work your ass off and can't afford half of what they flaunt!

Oh my gosh, me too, nomas. It's the biggest insult to self-supporting American citizens there ever was! I walk out with my basket filled about 1/4 to the top, and they have 2 or more baskets filled to the brim and practically falling out over the top and yes, they used an EBT card and yes they've got the "biggest baddest SUV" on the market.

It is disgusting. And if anyone thinks or deludes themselves for a minute that they are buying vehicles like that on cheap labor wages, they need to wake the hell up. This is drug money, it is not wages. They work by day as a cover and to connect with drug markets, and run drugs by night.

Our politicians who support open borders and illegal immigration are owned by the drug cartels to provide the open borders protection the cartels need to run the drugs in and haul the money out plus run their operations nationwide with illegal aliens they control. Drug cartels provide the money to the people to be smuggled in, help them maneuver through the system to stay in, lobby their PayPals for EITC benefits, welfare benefits, citizenship for kids born here, drivers licenses, in-state tuition, all of it to establish a foreign drug cartel controlled population inside the United States.

Now if I can figure this out 11 years ago with my research, you know every official in the US government with far more information available to them than I would have, knows this even better than I do. It's time to start spilling the beans, coming clean, ending the War on Drugs and shutting this foreign criminal illegal drug business to destroy our country. We need to legalize, make it domestic only, no imports no exports, industry and business run by licensed US citizens only, A to Z, top to bottom, regulate it, tax it under the FairTax, use part of the proceeds from the FairTax on drug sales that only drug users pay to fund better education and drug warning on sold packages and provide free rehab to anyone who wants or needs it, on demand without stigma.

Add, build the wall, enforce the law, deport every single illegal alien in the country, and these 4 major actions will end illegal immigration into the United States once and for all. Nothing else will solve it. You need all 4 components.

Somebody TWEET Trump to have a meeting with the IRS.

NO illegal aliens should be filing a 2016 RETURN or receiving ANY child tax care credits and absolutely NO refund.

Clamp down on them now before they file. Billions more of fraud can be prevented if we can act quickly.

Who can get this going???

From our lips to Trump's ears.

Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury. US Senate needs to confirm him and confirm him now.

12/17/2014

I.C.E. can use state's DMV databases to locate deportable aliens