Thread: WI: Real ID anxiety

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories ... 38&ntpid=2

Real ID anxiety
Will new requirement for driver's licenses create unsafe roads and second-class citizens?
By Pat Schneider

Laws requiring motorists to prove they are in the country legally to get a driver's license will force immigrant workers further underground, make roads more dangerous and inconvenience all drivers, local workers' rights advocates say.

A state law goes into effect April 1, requiring proof of legal presence in the United States before a driver's license or state ID card is issued.

The new law will put Wisconsin in compliance with the federal REAL ID law, which requires states to adopt a legal presence requirement by May 2008.

Civil libertarians say the laws could make the lives of immigrant workers unbearable.

"They will be outcasts," Alex Gillis of the Immigrant Workers Union said of undocumented workers unable to get essential identification. "People can't start building a normal life without identification. It's going to be a nightmare."

Immigrant worker advocates say that laws preventing people from getting identification will make it impossible to get a credit card or buy a car and effectively force them into the black market.

"When applying for the privilege of driving on our streets, people's birth certificates are going to be scanned into a database shared across state lines," said Stacy Harbaugh, a Madison community advocate with the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're on our way to a surveillance society."

The federal law is designed to prevent another 9/11-type attack, Wisconsin's U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, said when he introduced the 2005 legislation.

"The 9/11 hijackers could have used their passports to board the planes, but only one did. Why?" he said. "Those murderers chose our driver's licenses and state IDs as their forms of identification because these documents allowed them to blend in and not raise suspicion or concern. Mohammed Atta received a six-month visa to stay in the U.S., yet received a Florida driver's license good for six years!"

Wisconsin has been one of a handful of states that did not require proof of legal presence in order to secure a license.

The homeland security theme was repeated by sponsors of the state legislation.

"In the post-Sept. 11 era, it's amazing this issue has been overlooked in Wisconsin," said state Rep. Mark Gundrum, R-New Berlin.

But critics of the bills said it will needlessly mistreat immigrants and disgruntle motorists without providing real security.

No long lines - yet: Patrick Fernan, director of driver services for the Division of Motor Vehicles, said motorists should not experience significant delays at the DMV office under the state law.

Upon presenting one among a number of acceptable documents establishing legal presence in the United States - ranging from a certified certificate of birth in the United States or a valid U.S. passport to a variety of immigration and Department of Homeland Security documents - the bearer will be eligible for an original, renewal or replacement Wisconsin driver's license or state ID card, Fernan said.

Identification documents acceptable under Wisconsin Act 126, Legal Presence Law, are listed online. Drivers who do not have a certified birth certificate or passport, but who have a valid Social Security number, can sign a form attesting they are a U.S. citizen and be eligible, Fernan said.

There will be no additional or increased fees for drivers under the state's Legal Presence Law starting April 1, Fernan said.

But when the federal REAL ID law kicks in, it will be a different story. Under the law, which goes into effect in May 2008, fewer exemptions, higher costs and longer waits at DMV offices are all but certain, Fernan said.

"The rules from the Department of Homeland Security are even more unrealistic than we feared," he said.

The REAL ID proposed rules were released on March 1, and the state is still developing its comments on them, Fernan said.

He pointed to the federal provision that identification documents be electronically verified on the spot as a key reason the federal law is unrealistic.

"A system needs to be created to validate every birth certificate issued since 1935 with the state of issue," Fernan said. "That system does not exist."

Drivers born before 1935 would not be required to produce birth certificates.

Gov. Jim Doyle called REAL ID "a nightmare" after the proposed rules were released. The $20 million he budgeted to hire 30 more full-time workers to comply with the federal law won't be enough money, Fernan said this week.

REAL ID also would require that every license or ID holder be processed under the new law by 2013, five years after its effective date. That requirement would cut short the state's eight-year renewal cycle, requiring DMV to process drivers in a much shorter period than usual, he said.

It all adds up to higher costs than can by covered by the planned $10 surcharge on driver's licenses, Fernan said.

In urging Congress to amend REAL ID, Wisconsin Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi last year cited estimates that put the cost to the states of implementing the law at $11 billion nationwide over the first five years.

'Waste of money': State Rep. Pedro Colon calls the $20 million the state already is slated to spend to comply with REAL ID "the biggest waste of money in the budget. It doesn't provide any value to the state."

Colon, D-Milwaukee, is especially outraged by a provision of the REAL ID law that would bar residents of non-compliant states from boarding airplanes.

"That's absurd - to stop our economy and freedom to travel," he said.

Colon said he is working to convince the Joint Finance Committee, on which he sits, to put the $20 million budgeted for REAL ID compliance to other uses.

Maine and Idaho have passed resolutions rejecting participation in REAL ID. Bills rejecting the law have been introduced in a dozen other states, according to published reports.

Legislation to repeal and replace the law has been introduced in Congress.

Salvador Carranza, president of Dane County's Latinos United for Change and Advancement, LUChA, said his organization is working with Colon's office to come up with some kind of certificate that would provide for testing and regulation of drivers who can not produce the documentation required under REAL ID.

"People need to get to work, and since we live in a country where public transportation is not as good as it should be, if people cannot get driver's licenses, some of them are going to take the risk and drive without the right training or license," Carranza said.

"And when we're having an increase in accidents involving people who don't have insurance because they can't get a license, the industry is going to have to hike its rates," he said.

"Supposedly the whole idea was to prevent a terrorist attack, but to have a system with the features to be able to do that costs millions the states do not have," he said.

Mario Mendoza, an aide to Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, helped host a workshop geared to Latino residents on the new state law this week. It drew not a single participant.

"There has been a lot of discussion of the law in the Latino community," he said. "Perhaps people already have awareness."

Fears have been circulating in the Latino community that under the state law immigrant drivers who don't have licenses and who are stopped by police will be detained or deported.

But the city of Madison does not enforce immigration law, Mendoza said.

Madison Police Lt. Stephanie Bradley Wilson said the policy of her department will not change under the new law.

"Our main focus is traffic safety," she said. "We want people licensed. But we don't stop people to check their immigration status."

People stopped for a traffic violation who don't have a license will be ticketed, but their names will not be passed along to any federal agency, she said.

E-mail: pschneider@madison.com
Published: March 24, 2007

Civil libertarians say the laws could make the lives of immigrant workers unbearable.

It will NOT affect them in the least, but ILLEGAL aliens are another story. Get it right.......it's ILLEGAL aliens NOT immigrants!!!

It's like saying, "They're going to put more cameras in the banks. It will make the lifes of bank robbers miserable. They will live in fear of doing their job of robbing banks." Give me a break!!!

"They will be outcasts," Alex Gillis of the Immigrant Workers Union said of undocumented workers unable to get essential identification. "People can't start building a normal life without identification. It's going to be a nightmare."

Immigrant worker advocates say that laws preventing people from getting identification will make it impossible to get a credit card or buy a car and effectively force them into the black market.





This is the point!!! Make is as hard as possible for illegal immigrants to be able to settle here permanently!!

Yes, there will be longer lines and more hassle at the DMV. I recently went through this myself when I renewed my drivers license in Texas and provided my S.S. number, only to discover they were one number off, and had to provide my S.S. card to get it corrected. I do not carry my S.S. card, as it's too important a document to be lost with a wallet or stolen, and I misplaced it when I moved. So I had to go to the S.S. office to get an official sheet of paper that stated that I had the right S.S. number, went back to the DMV, and got it all straightened out.

Yes, it was a lot of hassle and very frustrating, but it's worth it in the end.

That same day, while I was waiting my turn, a Middle Eastern man started yelling at the DMV receptionist to hold his place in line while he went to his car to get his proper paperwork. She refused and after yelling and cursing at her some more, he left. He eventually came back, and found that the receptionist now had a police sergeant next to her for back up (he was an over six foot tall black man, very muscled, and obviously wouldn't take any kind of crap from this guy). I almost laughed out loud at how meek, polite, and quiet the man was this time in his presence. Believe me, before the sergeant came in, three Hispanic guys had stood up, tensed and ready to go drag this guy out of the DMV for treating the woman so poorly. Hooray!!

I do think that the more electronics they put on drivers licenses, and the more documentation they require to get them, the harder it will make the illegal immigrant's lives. It will also be hard And when the majority of them go to black market options, then the police can form a special unit just for cracking these places down.

Check out what they are doing in Washington State:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/03/24/bo ... index.html


At some point, as each state gets tougher and tougher on illegal immigrants, they will someday have no place to go but back home to their native country.

You know, I have thought that we could take all the billions we are spending in Iraq and totally transform Mexico into a self-sustaining nation where all the illegal immigrants will WANT to go home.

I believe someone on these boards once mentioned that the South fought so hard against the abolition of slavery because they thought the economy would collapse once they lost the slave labor. It's the same situation with the illegal immigrants.

I don't think the economy would collapse. I think there would be an economic slowdown for a couple of years while every industry has to re-organize itself. Then it would even out when Americans can take the jobs again, employment would drop to an all time low, and the economy would bounce back. All those factory workers who lost jobs to overseas providers would have jobs again. They'd have to fight hard to get decent wages back, but this would only mean the companies would earn less profits than they have been reaping in the past.

Also, I was thinking that teens could have part-time jobs again. I have heard from many people that there are plenty of teens out there who would LOVE to have part time jobs and/or summer jobs, who cannot because the illegal immigrants have taken those jobs. The work ethic would be re-born again in our teens!!

TexasGal
[/quote][/b]

Hi TexasGal - welcome to ALIPAC!

"They will be outcasts," Alex Gillis of the Immigrant Workers Union said of undocumented workers unable to get essential identification. "People can't start building a normal life without identification. It's going to be a nightmare."

Immigrant worker advocates say that laws preventing people from getting identification will make it impossible to get a credit card or buy a car and effectively force them into the black market.

This is the point!!! Make is as hard as possible for illegal immigrants to be able to settle here permanently!!

Yes indeed. It's amazing the entitlement mentality that some people exhibit. Re: '''It's going to be a nightmare..." is society's way of telling them that, ...maybe they're not supposed to be here...perhaps?
Re: 'a normal life' - who says they have any right to even expect such a thing - I don't.

Our main focus is traffic safety," she said. "We want people licensed. But we don't stop people to check their immigration status."

Actually, they don't care about traffic safety either because statistics show that people without a license are 3-4 more times likely to have an accident than those with a license.