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Now DMV is Turning Legal Immigrants Away


The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has long been a foe of illegal immigrants and even long-term foreign visitors, but now even legal immigrants are being given the shaft. Another administrative ripple caused by the 9/11 wave of (understandable) panic.

Armed with their social security cards and photo identification, legal immigrants line up at the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to get a driver's license. Seems simple enough, but after the DMV and RMV acted swiftly to implement greater post 9/11 security measures, drivers falling into several gray areas of the law were left in the lurch, at no fault of their own.

Clerks do not want to take chances and are quick to hand customers a rejection slip without much explanation. Naturally, immigration advocates are up in arms and even the RMV's general counsel, Erin Deveny admits that perfectly eligible drivers are probably being turned away. Actually, this is to be expected after America's bout with terrorism, and everyone agrees that we must be more careful, but no one wants to be the one caught in an administrative crunch.

Certain long-term foreign visitors, such as those here on student or work visas, are given social security cards that say "Valid for work only with INS authorization." Some speculate that this language is confusing to RMV clerks, who may also be unfamiliar with international or temporary forms of identification. Additional confusion may stem from that fact that previous requirements called simply for a social security number and now the card itself must be presented.

Immigration advocates claim that the DMV has appointed itself a mini-immigration check-point and questions the department's qualifications and rights in that regard.

The thing of it is that a driver's license is used for much more than driving a car. In our society, it is used as a sort of national i.d. card, allowing people to open bank accounts, enroll in college courses, board an airplane. This, say opponents, is precisely why the DMV and RMV need to take the issuing process so seriously.

How else could they really respond when as many as five of the 19 suspected hijackers of 9/11 had driver's licenses from at least three different states? Those terrorist suspects were all on visitor's visas and should never have had licenses to drive. Many new rules were promptly put in place to stop such mistakes from happening again.

Those stuck in the middle are having to contend with public transportation for now, which is fine in some places, virtually non-existent in others.

In the months the preceded September 2001, many states had been lax in enforcing DMV requirements, even doing away with requests for a social security number, which often made driver's licenses accessible to illegal aliens. Bills to loosen the laws have been tossed aside in most states, and Atlanta is sure to fail in its recent attempts at the same. At least until a legitimate national identification card can be implemented to take the place of social security cards and driver's licenses. Talks for that are underway, much to the chagrin of civil liberties activists who dub such tactics "big-brother like."

People need to remember all the government agencies that were criticized for their shockingly lenient policies that helped pave the way for the terrorism acts on 9/11/01. It seems we all need to decide how much privacy we are willing to give up and how much inconvenience we will tolerate to keep the United States a place that both natives and foreigners feel safe in.