Should NM give driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants?

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In 2003, Gov. Richardson signed a law allowing undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. Richardson said he hoped the move would allow more drivers to buy car insurance. In 2004, Gov. Jeb Bush supported a similar measure in Florida, saying “[O]nce [undocumented immigrants are] here, what do you do? Do you basically say that they’re lepers to society? That they don’t exist? . . . A policy that ignores them is a policy of denial.”

Now it’s becoming an issue in the GOP primary. What do you think?

“Should New Mexico continue to allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses?”

ARTHUR ALPERT, veteran newsman, columnist and blogger:

It’s time to kill this idea that undocumented immigrants should be treated humanely. Giving them driver’s licenses enables them to get to work and feed their families; -this will only encourage them to compete with native-born Americans for the few jobs industries haven’t exported over the past 25 years. I say, treat them like the criminals they are.

Besides, without scapegoats, we might have to examine our own personal and societal responsiblities.
I would, however, overlook the sins of those illegals employed by agribusiness, meatpacking and other big businesses reliant on cheap labor. Hey, what’s government for if not corporate welfare?

JIM BACA, blogger, former director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Albuquerque mayor, state land commissioner and recently retired natural resources trustee:

Undocumented immigrants should be allowed to obtain driver’s licenses.  They are here.  They are working in many jobs that Americans wont take on.  Our society would fail without their contributions to the economy and their families back home would fail if they didn’t send money to them.

If the Republicans use this as a wedge issue I can only say it is not much better than the Jew-baiting carried out in 1930s Germany.  I am not saying the GOP wants to commit genocide, but that they are willing to scapegoat a certain segment of our population as being the source of all of our problems.

Governor Richardson was justified in signing the law in 2003.  Jeb Bush was right to follow that lead in 2004.  Will the now extreme GOP abandon all sense of decency?  Let’s hope not.  I would like to see a strong and moderate republican party emerge at some point to keep the fringe ever further from running our democracy.

BILL JORDAN, policy director, New Mexico Voices for Children:

Those who want to repeal the law seem to have a solution in search of a problem.  There is no evidence that allowing unauthorized immigrants to get a driver’s license would have any value to our society or to public safety. There is no evidence that it would curb the flow of unauthorized immigrants into our state.  Driver’s licenses do not make someone less deportable or more likely to find work.

I’ve yet to hear of a problem caused by an unauthorized immigrant having a driver’s license.  But when I heard the debate at the Roundhouse a few years ago, I heard a litany of problems from law enforcement who argued in favor of licensing.  Law enforcement and other advocates testified about the importance of having positive identification when someone is stopped for questioning.  They also know that if unauthorized persons have a driver’s license they know our traffic laws and they can get insurance, and that’s important for the safety of all of us.

Lawmakers and Governor Richardson did the right thing when they took the advice of law enforcement and passed this law.

CARTER BUNDY, political action representative, AFSCME:

This issue is merely a symptom of the larger problem: immigration policies that create an underground world. We need to have realistic immigration policies and then, for the first time in American history, enforce them. If we really have a major need for new employees, let’s give them a legal means to come in and work. Creating an underground society and economy makes immigrants vulnerable to all kinds of abuses, from their employers, from domestic violence, and from the inability to participate in many parts of normal society.

I’ve written about this issue before. The solution has to involve serious enforcement, not against immigrants (who are simply trying to provide for their families), but against the employers who gain an unfair advantage over law-abiding employers. And I don’t mean a fine–those just get written off as a cost of doing business, as we’ve seen from the horrible mine owner in West Virginia. I mean put people in jail who hire workers without proper documentation. For a long time.

If there are no jobs available without legal status, and we give those already here a path to citizenship (after all, we invited immigrants here and very intentionally refused to enforce our laws for decades), then we’ll effectively cut off the incentive for undocumented immigration, without disrupting the lives of innocent immigrants who we’ve invited here.

If our economy needs more employees, employers will have to make that case to Congress and we’ll have to change our legal immigration policies. We also need to be supportive of keeping families united–the new policy shouldn’t break up families. But we also have to be a nation of the rule of law. The current system of an underground economy and society makes immigrants’ lives far worse than they would otherwise be. It empowers criminals of all kinds. It deprives innocent immigrants of basic human protections and rights. It destroys the labor market for legal immigrants and citizens. It forces otherwise law-abiding companies to themselves become criminals because they have to compete with unscrupulous employers.

Driver’s licenses? I don’t see how our country can invite people here–and make no mistake, that’s exactly what happened–and then compound their already difficult lives, and the lives of citizens, by forcing them to drive without insurance, without passing a driver’s test, without passing an eye exam, and giving every incentive to flee accidents. Most law enforcement I’ve heard speak on this issue think it’s a good idea to issue licenses. But that’s addressing one small symptom of a far larger issue. We need to return to being a country of the rule of law, and can do so by establishing orderly, compassionate, reasonable immigration laws and enforcing them.