Spitzer Finds Ally for Driver’s License Plan

October 19, 2007, 12:30 pm
Spitzer Finds Ally for Driver’s License Plan
By Sewell Chan

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose plan to grant illegal immigrants driver’s licenses has encountered a wave of opposition among New York State voters and politicians, announced this morning that Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism czar, had endorsed the proposal.
In a news conference at New York University, Mr. Spitzer tried to portray Mr. Clarke’s support to allay concerns that the proposal would make it easier for criminals or even prospective terrorists to obtain government identification. Mr. Clarke did not appear at the news conference, but he issued the following statement, which Mr. Spitzer’s staff released:
The United States needs a reliable and secure personal identification system, with appropriate civil liberties protections, to insure that we know who it is that is being allowed in to sensitive facilities and who is engaging in other controlled activities. Such a system will also reduce the billions of dollars of loss annually in identity theft and related fraud. The Real ID Act passed by Congress, if implemented, will form a basis for such a system based on drivers’ licenses.
However, the federal government has not yet issued guidelines to states on how to implement that law. Even when the guidelines are issued, states will have many years to implement them. Some states have already announced their intention to ignore the law because it is an unfunded federal mandate, forcing significant new expenditures on the states. Thus, the fate of the Real ID Act is uncertain.
In the interim, states should act to register immigrants, legal and illegal, who use our roadways as New York is doing. From a law enforcement and security perspective, it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads, and to have their photograph and their address on file than to have large numbers of people living in our cities whose identity is totally unknown to the government.
In the longer term, Congress should increase the likelihood that the Real ID Act is implemented nationwide by authorizing the federal government to pay for its incremental costs.
Mr. Spitzer promised during his campaign last year to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, but the topic has proved to be a political quandary for him.
Under the new rules, which were announced in September, the State Department of Motor Vehicles will accept a current foreign passport as proof of identity without also requiring a valid yearlong visa or other evidence of legal immigration. The policy, which does not require legislative approval, will be phased in starting in December and will be tied to new antifraud measures.
Several update county clerks have voiced opposition to the plan, and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican who is running for president, has also spoken out against it. The governor has been steadfast so far, but some of his fellow Democrats are worried that his stance could have high political costs. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, has expressed sympathy with the goals of the plan but has not taken an unequivocal stance.
Interestingly, even before Mr. Clarke’s statement today, some security experts had spoken favorably about Mr. Spitzer’s plan, saying it was a of bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the identification system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road licensed and insured.
The experts said the success of the policy will rest on the reliability of new technology that will be installed in D.M.V. offices to verify the authenticity of passports and other documents that the illegal immigrants will be required to submit when applying for licenses.
The experts noted that having a driver’s license should not make it easier to board a domestic airplane flight, because foreign passports are already accepted as identification at airports. Under federal guidelines, neither a foreign passport nor an American driver’s license is among the criteria used to determine whether the bearer will be subject to extra security screening.
Although several of the Sept. 11 terrorists used driver’s licenses to rent vehicles and board airplanes, they were able to obtain licenses as apparently legal immigrants, if in some cases by presenting fraudulent documentation. The 9/11 Commission — which took extensive testimony from Mr. Clarke — specifically declined to make recommendations on whether licenses should be granted to illegal immigrants, saying it was not germane to their inquiry.
Mathew R. Warren contributed reporting.