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Giving Driver's License To Anyone Invites Whole World To Tiptoe In

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 18, 2007

U.S. roads are full of unlicensed drivers who are in the country without permission. They're looking for work or commuting to jobs they illegally hold.

And when they have wrecks, their lack of insurance and other credentials gives them a strong motive to flee the scene.

Since there are no plans to deport the millions of undocumented foreigners, some suggest it would be a good idea to allow people who sneak across the border to get driver's licenses, just like U.S. citizens.

Such a question at one of the Democratic debates caught Sen. Hillary Clinton unprepared. She instinctively tried to equivocate, but on this issue there is no middle ground.

The answer is no.

Once you hold a driver's license, you can avoid special attention from police in traffic stops, deceive employers, board planes, cash checks and, if you want to push it, maybe even vote.

The governor of Clinton's state, Eliot Spitzer, was motoring ahead with a licensing plan when Clinton's waffle set off a public backlash that pushed her off the fence and onto the no-license side, where most voters stand.

Polls show 70 percent of New York residents hate the licensing idea, which makes it more popular there than in most of the rest of the county, except perhaps in the eight states that allow it. Spitzer was forced to drop plans to document the undocumented.

Respect For The Law

A nation can continue to welcome a healthy stream of new immigrants without opening its workplaces and highways to the flood who want to move here. A state that gives a driver's license to a foreigner who violated federal law to get here is undermining respect for immigration laws.

The deeper tension in the United States is that with 11.6 million people already here illegally, there is little left to undermine. The official estimate is low because it assumes anyone who came before 1980 is by now documented. Neither does it count Cubans, who are pretty much legal as soon as they touch dry U.S. soil.

The ranks of the undocumented have increased by one-third in seven years, and U.S. citizens are right to worry about the implications for welfare, wages, living standards, politics and public safety.

The case for testing and licensing is based on the reality that many illegal immigrants are driving every day without ever having proved they know traffic rules or have reasonably good eyesight.

Here in Florida, former Gov. Jeb Bush once suggested universal licensing.

"We shouldn't allow them to come into this country to begin with," he said, "but once they're here, what do you do?"

As in New York, Bush's plan died.

The licensing dispute gets to the heart of the nation's uncertainty about how to handle immigration. Many illegal immigrants are hard workers. Their children are in public schools. They pay taxes and make other civic contributions. They are counted in the census.

Spitzer and others say highway officials cannot pretend they're not here. He said licensing would bring them out of the shadows so the state at least would know who they are.

It is hard to believe that just letting them get licenses would bring them out of the shadows. An immigrant who puts his undocumented status on record alongside his addresses might be inviting deportation. And if no immigration officer is allowed to come knocking on the door, the licensed illegals would suddenly have almost the same status as U.S. citizens - a form of amnesty.

Ticket To Jail

The current situation today leaves the undocumented in a state of uncertainty. A Tampa Police Department spokesman and Hillsborough Sheriff David Gee say if officers encounter a driver without a license who cannot prove residency, chances are good he or she will be taken to jail and turned over to immigration authorities.

Whether they are actually deported depends on the outcome of a lengthy legal process.

The reality is that the immigration system is overwhelmed and not about to deport millions of people whether police catch them or not.

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, who has taken the lead on immigration reform, has co-sponsored a resolution criticizing states that give driver's licenses to folks who cannot prove their legal residence.

A Martinez spokesman explains that the license would reward lawbreakers and complicate efforts to crack down on employers who hire them.

Immigration reform and better control of the borders is essential. Until that happens, Martinez and the majority of Americans are right. When scofflaws are licensed, they will be free to scoff at the law and call their distant friends and relatives to join them.

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