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=> Taking Away Immigrants' Driver's Licenses

Taking Away Immigrants' Driver's Licenses

Posted by Habibi (Guest) - Tuesday, July 27 2004, 1:17:58 (CEST)
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I adore Dina. : ) She's the most articulate and brilliant, not to mention beautiful, female law student I've ever known. Besides, she's NOT an illegal immigrant. Bredesen's an idiot.

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Tennessee unveils 'driving certificates' for illegal immigrants

AMBER McDOWELL, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, July 4, 2004

(07-04) 23:27 PDT NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) --

A new law that went into effect last month means Dina Guirguis, an Egyptian in the United States on a temporary student visa, can't renew her Tennessee driver's license when it expires in a few years.

The law allows only U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents to get a Tennessee driver's license. That rules out illegal immigrants and temporary visitors such as Guirguis.

But Tennessee is offering a unique compromise -- a "certificate of driving" that illegal immigrants won't be able to use for official identification but that will allow them to drive. The certificate guarantees the person knows the rules of driving in Tennessee, but can't use it to buy a gun, rent a car or board an airplane.

Melissa Savage, a policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said the certificate is the first of its kind, and other states will be watching to see how it works.

That's not much comfort to Guirguis, who will have to start using her passport -- written entirely in Arabic and French -- as her primary identification in the United States.

On the few occasions she used her passport as ID, the 27-year-old Vanderbilt University Law School graduate said she got "perplexed looks."

"One of the wonderful things about this country is it has traditionally and historically offered non-residents the same protection and due process as citizens," she said. "The change disturbs me."

The purple driving certificate, which looks different from a regular license, reads, "For Driving Purposes Only, Not Valid for Identification."

Gov. Phil Bredesen, whose administration developed the law, said the change was prompted by the threat of terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001.

Savage said Bredesen's reaction is typical. State leaders across the country are taking a hard look at the risks of giving a driver's license to anyone who passes a test -- even when they can't prove who they are.

"When it came out that so many of the terrorists had acquired driver's licenses, the trend now is to tighten restrictions," she said. "It's way beyond driving now, and 9-11 put that all into focus."

About 40 states have laws or regulations restricting driver's licenses to those with a "lawful presence" in the country, according to the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant advocacy group.

This year, legislatures in 25 states considered 49 bills on whether illegal immigrants could hold driver's licenses. Advocates say giving illegal immigrants licenses will improve traffic safety.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger repealed a law last December allowing illegal immigrants to get licenses after opponents claimed it was a threat to national security. In Florida, a similar bill backed by Gov. Jeb Bush was abandoned after law enforcement officials raised security concerns.

National Immigration Law Center policy analyst Tyler Moran said those decisions are knee-jerk reactions by state leaders who have "gotten caught up in policies that make us feel good but don't make us safer."

Instead, Moran said, the focus should be on how to make driver's licenses more secure. That includes stiffer penalties for making fraudulent documents and better training to help workers recognize them, and a review of the types of documents accepted as proof of residency, she said.

Immigrant advocates worry the change will mean increased racial profiling.

"If I'm stopped by police for a minor traffic offense, it could serve as a pretext for investigating further," Guirguis said of carrying the driving certificate. "It's indicative to the overall trend since 9/11 of chipping away of civil liberties."

The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition has set up a hot line for people to call if they think their civil rights have been violated over the driving certificate.

But Tom Moore, deputy commissioner for the state Safety Department, said holders of driving certificates won't be unfairly targeted by law enforcement.

"We do not enforce immigration laws. That's the job of the federal government," he said. "They will get treated the same way anyone else would with any other document."

Bredesen said making sure citizens are safe from terrorism "just really trumped most of the other issues."

"The more that I talked with homeland security people in Washington, the more convinced I became that we've just got to tighten up and be very clear on who has this identification," Bredesen said.

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