D.M.V. Chief Is Pressed to Defend Plan to Give Licenses to Illegal Immigrants

By DANNY HAKIM
Published: October 16, 2007
ALBANY, Oct. 15 — In a hearing punctuated by angry exchanges about terrorism, Senate Republicans grilled the commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles on Monday, pressing him to defend Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Senator Vincent L. Leibell, an upstate Republican, declared that under the proposal, Osama bin Laden could obtain a driver’s license in New York.

The commissioner, David J. Swarts, shot back, “I think we’d probably catch that right away.â€