Thread: Many Unlicensed Illegal Immigrants Refusing To Stop Driving

http://www.nysun.com/article/27292

Many Unlicensed Illegal Immigrants Refusing To Stop Driving

By DANIELA GERSON - Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 9, 2006

Despite a recent ban on granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in New York, many of the city's undocumented immigrants - estimated to number more than 500,000 - have refused to stop driving. Some are doing so without identification or insurance and others are traveling hundreds of miles to buy such cards on the black market.

About 252,000 New York State residents were found to have faulty or nonexistent Social Security numbers after the state adopted a policy to cull driver's licenses against a national database. Two years after letters were first sent out informing residents their licenses would be suspended, many drivers whose licenses are no longer valid have told The New York Sun they have been getting behind the wheel.

A spokesman for the New York Police Department said it does not keep records of drivers stopped without licenses, but a half-dozen local immigrant leaders said the trend is not confined to just a few ethnic groups.

'They're trying to do everything they can. Some people are trying to get driver's licenses from other states, and many people just keep driving without licenses,' said Ju Bum Cha, the advocacy director of the Young Korean American Service and Education Center, a Korean advocacy organization in Queens. Of more than 300 phone calls from immigrants at risk of losing their licenses seeking the group's advice, most were continuing to drive, he said. 'It's a really dangerous situation.'

A former New York State motor vehicle commissioner, Raymond Martinez, defended the policy, which he created, as a security measure to protect against future terrorist attacks, noting that the September 11, 2001, hijackers had fake documentation. A spokesman for the state Department of Motor Vehicles said it is a crime to drive without a license.

Last year was when 'all the problems began' for Brian, a 30-year-old Irish immigrant. The owner of a plumbing business, he said he relies on his car to transport supplies to jobs all around the city from his home in Yonkers. In 1999, he said, the Department of Motor Vehicles granted him a valid New York license even though he had overstayed his tourist visa. At that time, no Social Security card was needed to get a license.

By 2002, however, the DMV was requesting a Social Security number and, as part of an attempt to tighten security following the September 11 attacks, it began to check its records against a national database of Social Security numbers. According to a new federal law passed last year, all states will be expected to require Social Security cards by 2008. New York had been suspending licenses obtained without Social Security numbers, but has temporarily stopped doing so due to a lawsuit filed by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Still, many illegal immigrants are finding that their licenses are expiring and they no longer have the means to receive the documentation they need to drive or enter federal buildings.

When Brian went to renew his license in July he was told he could not because he did not have a Social Security number. Now his license has expired, but he has kept driving. And he's not alone: He said he knows dozens of Irish immigrants who are doing the same thing.

Brian heard word that he could go to Tennessee, which has been offering a 'driving certificate' to illegal immigrants with proof of state residence since 2004. Fearful of the risk, he opted instead to use his Irish license and insure his car under his brother's name. 'I didn't want to go and get myself in trouble,' he said. 'It's bad enough driving without identification, not going with false information and getting yourself in worse trouble.'

Indeed, there have been many immigrants arrested in recent months for paying hundreds of dollars and traveling hundreds of miles to receive documents in Tennessee.

The certificate law 'just kind of opened up a floodgate of everyone wanting to come here to get some sort of identification,' Sheriff Tim Hutchison of Knox County, whose officers discovered that 58 illegal immigrants had used the same Knoxville address to get certificates, told the Associated Press.

Dangers aside, many New Yorkers are looking to other states with more lenient laws, such as Tennessee and Michigan, as a solution.

A car service driver in Brooklyn, who asked to be identified as Pablo, said most of the drivers at his base, like himself, received letters saying their Social Security cards were not valid. About half the drivers who received the letter quit, he said. Pablo, a 44-year-old Mexican immigrant, took another tact. He paid $2,000 to a document broker who had initially helped him get his license. The broker took his pictures and money, and in return Pablo received a valid Maryland license.

'It's complicated and it has its risks: The procedure is a federal crime, but it's done out of necessity,' Pablo said in Spanish before taking to the streets for his shift last night.

They have no respect for our country or its laws, PERIOD.

Many Unlicensed Illegal Immigrants Refusing To Stop Driving

But of course they'll return home when Bush's "guest worker" plan requires them to, won't they?

Originally Posted by CountFloyd

Many Unlicensed Illegal Immigrants Refusing To Stop Driving

But of course they'll return home when Bush's "guest worker" plan requires them to, won't they?

Sure they will. Just poor hardworking folks................