Our View: States have right to know who's here
Posted: 08/14/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT

It's a bottom-line thing: States have the right to know who is living inside its borders.

Verification of residency should be a must, and making that as efficient as possible is a no-brainer.

Thus, it's a good thing that Gov. Susana Martinez has OK'd Las Cruces as a place of residency verification. Initially some 10,000 foreign nationals — who received notice from the state — would have had to travel to an Albuquerque office. Now there are two - and in the state's two largest cities.

Admittedly, though, the verification process on legal residency is steeping in a political caldron.

For one thing, the Martinez administration can cancel the driver's licenses of people who do not comply with the residence checks. Let the politics begin.

Martinez, ever since the campaign trail, has been against issuing driver's licenses to non U.S. residents. She lost that bid, so far anyway, in the state Legislature. So she's addressing it by going through a side door. She's now ordered foreign nationals to verify their residency. And we agree with her move.

At issue is fraud by illegal immigrants. New Mexico is one of only three states that issues driver's licenses without the applicant having to prove residency.

As it stands, people living in other states, with legal U.S. residency or not, can get a driver's license in New Mexico.

A driver's license issued from any state in the country is a virtual ID card. And an ID card gets a person on airplanes, and allows for financial and other transactions. As Martinez points out, New Mexico is a magnet for con artists and fraud.

We agree with our governor. Only legal U.S. residents should have the ID that is a driver's license. And we back her attempt to get that finally passed — perhaps in a special session of the Legislature set next month.

We think Martinez' in-the-meantime move is a good step: Although an illegal immigrant can still be issued a New Mexico driver's license, he or she must provide proof of residency.

And having a Las Cruces office handling that, too, is simple common sense. It's easier for a person in, say, the Lordsburg-Deming area, to get to Las Cruces than to Albuquerque. It's a long, long haul from southwest New Mexico to Albuquerque.

Admittedly, this entire issue remains controversial. Charges of racial profiling echo loudly.

But the bottom line remains: We have a right to know who is in our country.

http://www.scsun-news.com/ci_18676307?