Md. compromise on driver's license renewal closely watched
Plan sparks concern among immigrants, their advocates
By Julie Bykowicz | julie.bykowicz@baltsun.com
11:59 AM EDT, May 29, 2009

Marie-Therese received her Maryland driver's license this spring, something her 15-year-old daughter might never be able to do. The family illegally emigrated from West Africa to Baltimore four years ago, and a law that goes into effect Monday means new drivers who cannot prove their lawful status in the United States won't be able to get a license.

"She is upset," Marie-Therese said of her daughter, who is a Baltimore high school student. "She told me, 'I want to drive, too.'"

The mother, who didn't want the family's last name to be used for fear of being deported, took her daughter to Annapolis this year to try to convince lawmakers to keep Maryland's status as one of just four states that grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

Faced with an October deadline to comply with a federal security act known as Real ID, lawmakers instead struck a last-minute compromise, allowing anyone who already has a Maryland driver's license to renew without showing proof of legal presence in the United States.



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The change puts Maryland in rare company: According to the American Association of Motor Vehicles Administrations, only Utah has a comparable two-tiered program, and allows some illegal immigrants who have a tax identification number to obtain a "driving privilege card."

Three states are more permissive. Washington, New Mexico and Hawaii do not require proof of lawful presence to obtain a driver's license. Other states, including Tennessee and New York, have tried two-tiered licensing but abandoned it because of political and security complications, officials in those states say.

Immigrant rights advocates say they will be closely watching to see if Maryland's compromise on renewals works. But it's unclear whether illegal immigrants will choose to be singled out by getting licenses that look different. And some worry that the two kinds of licenses will lead to discrimination by police officers and court officials.

"We'll just have to wait and see," said Tyler Moran, employment policy director for the National Immigration Law Center. "There's really no way of predicting."

Though she has had it for months, Marie-Therese said she still compares her license to other people's to reassure herself that hers is unremarkable.

"What we want is to be like everyone else," she said. When hers expires in 2014, she said she doubts she'll renew.

She envisioned a scenario where police judge people based on their style of license. "Maybe they'll say, 'This one is for good people and this one is for bad people,'" she said.

"That is absolutely a concern," said Ajmel Quereshi, director of immigrant rights projects for the ACLU of Maryland. He said police could begin using the "not federally compliant" license as reasonable suspicion to inquire further about a person's legal status.

Frederick County has a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and some other counties also cooperate with immigration officials, Quereshi said.

But Kim Propeack, director of community organizing and political action for the immigrant-rights group CASA of Maryland, said the option to renew was better than having a whole group of drivers cut off. She had lobbied lawmakers to continue allowing new and renewing drivers without documentation to obtain licenses, arguing that the federal Real ID program has been rejected by other states and might be scrapped altogether.

Lawmakers debated the contentious licensing issue nearly until midnight on the closing day of the legislative session. The Senate had pushed for one license that, whether new or renewing, drivers would have to show proof of their U.S. legal status before obtaining. The House of Delegates wanted a permissive two-tier system with unlimited renewals for illegal immigrants who already have their Maryland license.

The compromise was adopted with less than 30 minutes to go before the session ended.

"We are saddened by the lack of leadership in Maryland on this issue," Propeack said. "But in reality, this has to be fixed federally. The passage of the new restriction just makes the people on the ground that much more committed to fighting on a national level."

Marie-Therese says she and others in her community are shifting their attention to President Barack Obama in the hopes that he will address larger immigration issues.

Meanwhile, the Motor Vehicle Administration is preparing for these new rules, and spokesman Buel C. Young said he expects the switch to be seamless. "The new law is extremely clear," he said.

For the past few years, MVA has scheduled about 2,000 appointments each week for prospective drivers born abroad. The last such appointments will be Friday, and those have been booked for two months, Young said.

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