I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
A bill that would revoke drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants was tabled in a House committee on a party-line vote Thursday afternoon.
The bill failed on a 5-4 vote in the House Labor and Human Resources Committee.
The bill, put forward by Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque, would have given undocumented immigrants who wished to drive a driving permit instead of a drivers license. Rehm characterized the bill as a compromise between Gov. Susana Martinez and some members of the legislature, but neither seemed particularly interested in compromising on the issue.
“A lot of individuals have come to New Mexico to get a driver’s license, and then left to go ahead and use that driver’s license to open bank accounts and board aircraft,” said Rehm, according to KRQE.
Committee chair Miguel Garcia said in a statement that this is “a public safety issue.”
“Approximately 80,000 immigrants are driving legally on our streets with auto insurance,” Garcia said in a statement. “Replacing driver’s licenses for immigrants with ineffective driver’s permits would take us back to the Stone Age, not to mention that it would also increase insurance rates for all of us.”
“The Constitution of the United States says that all ‘men’ are created equal – not all ‘citizens,’” House Majority Leader Ken Martinez, D-Albuquerque, said in a statement. “We have to consider balancing the needs of our police to protect us with the constitutional protection of the individual. If you overstep that balance, then you create a system of government that isn’t just.”
This won’t be the end of the discussion about drivers license for undocumented immigrants in this session. Rep. Andy Nunez, I-Hatch, will carry Martinez’s legislation on drivers licenses.
New Mexico and Washington are the only two states that allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.
