Gubernatorial candidates don’t know — or won’t say — what happens after NM stops issuing drivers’ licenses to immigrants

Both candidates for governor say they want to stop the practice of giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, but neither appears to know how to handle, or wants to talk about, the potential consequences of such an action.

The Independent asked Democrat Diane Denish and Republican Susana Martinez how they would address a potential rise in the state’s uninsured rate and the possible increase in non-licensed motorists on the state’s highways and thoroughfares if the state stopped issuing licenses to illegal immigrants.

Both have publicly come out in support of stopping the practice if elected as governor.

Neither answered the questions.

Public safety was a major reason given in 2003 for passing a law that opened up New Mexico drivers’ licenses to undocumented immigrants. Illegal immigrants who had drivers’ licenses would be guaranteed to understand our laws and would be able to buy car insurance, a practice that conceivably would help to reduce the state’s then-20 percent-uninsured rate, the argument went.

A driver’s license also created a driving record. Currently, any citation a motorist receives goes on his or her record, making it easier for authorities to identify serial DWI offenders, for example, said Michael Sandoval, director of the state’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD).

The Independent sent the questions Wednesday asking the candidates for their ideas on how to address the potential consequences of a prohibition on illegal immigrants’ receiving state driver’s licenses.

Sidestepping the questions, Denish’s campaign instead seized on the opportunity to urge federal action to create federal immigration reform legislation.

“It is important that this issue, along with securing our borders, is part of a national debate on comprehensive immigration reform. It is well past time for a single immigration law, not a patchwork of laws and policies that differ from state to state,” said Denish’s spokesman, Chris Cervini.

Martinez’s campaign did not respond to The Independent’s questions at all despite her aides’ repeated reminders to reporters that the GOP candidate has the tougher position on the issue.

Denish has said she’d consider stopping the issuance of licenses going forward, but Martinez has said she wants to repeal the law, revoking the tens of thousands of the state’s drivers’ licenses already issued to illegal immigrants.

Currently around 80,000 foreign nationals have New Mexico driver’s licenses, but not all are illegal immigrants, making it difficult to determine the exact number of illegal immigrants with state driver’s licenses, Sandoval, the MVD director, said.

Martinez’s silence makes twice that her campaign has declined to answer questions submitted by The Independent, once on health care issues and this time on driver’s licenses.

Drivers licenses are part of larger immigration debate

Advocates of the law, including Gov. Bill Richardson, have said allowing illegal immigrants to get drivers’ licenses brings that population into the light and out of the shadows, creating a mutually beneficial situation for the state and the immigrants themselves.

“We can keep track of people’s driving records,” said Marcela Diaz of Somos un Pueblo Unido, an immigrants rights group. “Our community is taking a great leap of faith in coming forward and paying a lot of money, paying for licenses, registration. That security is very important to our community.”

“We are more secure,” Diaz added. “This is the tradeoff for the money we pay.”

At the same time the licensing program has battled cases of fraud.

In May the state Taxation and Revenue Department issued a warning about a criminal enterprise using residential addresses to create false documents to prove residency. Foreign nationals must provide several documents to qualify for a New Mexico’s driver’s license, including those that prove residency, say for example, a utility bill.

The warning came two days after a 47-year-old Albuquerque woman pleaded guilty to several felony charges in connection with providing false residency documents to foreign nationals applying to get New Mexico drivers’ licenses.

Meanwhile illegal immigration has again become a hot-button issue nationally, thrust to the forefront by Arizona’s passage this spring of the nation’s toughest immigration law. Arizona’s action has provoked not only a heated, roiling debate among supporters and detractors but also a court challenge from the federal government.

The history of the law

When the state passed the 2003 driver’s license law, about 10 states had similar laws on the books. That number has steadily dwindled to where now there are only three – New Mexico, Washington and Utah.

At the time New Mexico’s motor vehicle uninsured rate hovered around 20 percent, Sandoval said.

“Now it’s around 9 percent,” he said.

Sandoval couldn’t say with certainty that the 2003 law led to the decrease. Since the law’s passage, the state has passed other statutes that might have contributed to the reduction. A separate law passed in recent years prohibits motorists from canceling insurance after registering their vehicle, a bedeviling problem in the past. Every month the state crosschecks records to make sure vehicles are insured, he said. If a vehicle isn’t, the owner is notified that he or she has a certain amount of time to correct the situation. If they don’t their motor vehicle registration will be suspended.

The state looks at the vehicle, not at the person’s legal status, when performing the monthly motor vehicle insurance checks, Sandoval said, explaining why it’s difficult to attribute the uninsured rate reduction solely to the 2003 law.

But, he added, “I would have to think that (the 2003 law) helped.”

Diaz, the immigrant rights advocate, agrees.

“I don’t think you have to be a rocket scientist to see that you have a population that wasn’t insured before,” Diaz said.

But Rep. Dennis Kintigh, R-Roswell, questioned the law’s effect on the motor vehicle uninsured state.

“Show me the data,” Kintigh said. “We don’t see any evidence of it. I see the indication that we still have a high number of uninsured motorists.”

Kintigh also questioned the security of the driver’s licenses given to illegal immigrants.

“Do we really even know who this individual is?” Kintigh said, referring to individual applicants.

Problems in issuing licenses

It’s rare to have questions about an illegal immigrant’s identity when he or she applies for a driver’s license, Sandoval said.

People without social security numbers — foreign nationals, including immigrants in the U.S. illegally — must present a valid passport or a valid Mexican ‘matricula’ produced from that country’s consulate in El Paso or Albuquerque, along with two proofs of residency.

With “a passport you go through a process. A matricula — you go through a process,” he said. “…Regardless of whether a person has a SSN or not, it’s very rare that we find fraud where someone is pretending to be someone else. Where issues start to happen – and it doesn’t happen very often – is in the proof of residency.”

The case of the 47-year-old Albuquerque woman recently convicted on several felony counts of providing false proof of residency documents offers an example.

Rosa Pardo-Marrufo was arrested in April of 2009 and indicted on over 100 counts, according to a news release from the state Taxation and Revenue Department, which the Motor Vehicles Division falls under.

Her scheme involved providing false residency documents to foreign nationals, many of them from Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, the release said. The individuals seeking New Mexico driver’s licenses paid Pardo-Marrufo anywhere from $700 to $900 for the documents, according to the department.

Pardo-Marrufo is scheduled to be sentenced this week, and will face a maximum of 10 years in prison.

No system is failsafe, said Sandoval, acknowledging that problems occur. But he added that fraud schemes are not unique to the foreign national community. Fraud schemes involving drivers licenses also occur among U.S. citizens, he said. But whether they involve citizens or illegal immigrants, they’re rare, he said.

And safeguards are in place to protect against them becoming widespread, he added.

A 45-day window between when the MVD issues a temporary driver’s license and mails out a permanent one gives state tax fraud investigators time to verify information on the documents provided, Sandoval said.

Investigators look for people claiming to live at the same address or attempts to copy a bank statement by whiting out a name and presenting a false document, Sandoval said. Another red flag is separate applicants handing in within a week of one another a gas bill with the same account number.

Sometimes fraud investigators will go out to an address given to see if it’s a warehouse or abandoned, he said.

“They don’t do it for every single person, but if there’s a reason to believe that the information is incorrect,” he added.