DRIVER'S LICENSE PLAN CRASHES AND BURNS
by Dustin Seplow

After loud and steady opposition from many state officials and politicians, Gov. Eliot Spitzer has dropped his plan to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses without proof of legal status. After his initial proposal was met with opposition, Spitzer had introduced a revised plan that called for three different types of licenses.

Under the new plan, undocumented immigrants would have only gotten a limited license that would not count as a valid form of federal identification. The new plan also included a proposed "Real I.D." that would have acted as a sort of national identification for citizens and legal immigrants. Also, there would have been a new "enhanced" license that would allow New York Citizens to cross the Canadian border without a passport.

This new, three-tiered system had the undocumented immigrant community worried. "If we are implementing now Real I.D. in the state of New York, in a very progressive state, a law which is a very conservative law against immigrants, its kind of a wow, it's something worse than we had before," said Joel Magallan, executive director of Asociación Tepeyac, a Mexican immigrant advocacy group.

As always, undocumented immigrants were hesitant to interact with the government in any facet.

"I'm a little suspicious because if I sign up with a foreign passport they'll have me on a record," said a young Ecuadorian immigrant woman without papers, who asked to remain anonymous.

County Clerks that supervise state DMV offices had sworn that they would not administer licenses to undocumented drivers under Spitzer's first plan. Republican state politicians, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also spoke out against the governor's original directive. They all declared that the law undermined citizenship and created another unnecessary avenue for potential terrorists to infiltrate U.S. bureaucracy. Spitzer's revised plan was aimed at dealing with these potential weaknesses. Bloomberg said he supported the new proposal.

The immigrants' fear of government remains based in the very real threat of deportation. "If they do decide to crack down they will have my information," said the Ecuadorian immigrant and Queens resident. "I've had family mistreated and I'm scared."

Part of this fear stems from Gov. George Pataki's actions following the attacks on the World Trade center in 2001. Governor Pataki reinstated rules that prohibited immigrants from obtaining or renewing licenses if they could not prove legal status.

"Some people who were driving a taxi, some of the people were school bus drivers, some of the people were distributing food, distributing construction materials, they lost their drivers licenses, therefore they lost their job," Magallan said.

Problems arose as many of these drivers remained on the roads, even without having a valid license. "For those who are owners of a car, they are still driving, even if they don't have Social Security number or they don't have driver's licenses, they are still driving, why? Because they need to drive," Magallan said.

Spitzer held that licensing these drivers is a way to make driving safer and cheaper for everyone, citing studies that show licensed and insured drivers as having cleaner driving records. Unlicensed immigrant drivers are not permitted to get insurance. Thus, insurance fees will decrease, as there will be less uninsured drivers on the road Spitzer said.

"We will not become part of what is propagated on the federal level, that if we don't admit they are here then we can somehow not provide services. That is bad policy," said Governor Spitzer in a press conference announcing his first plan. "They no longer need to hide and pretend they are not here."

But in the end the issue became too controversial, with Democrats worrying that the hot topic might even hurt the chances of the party's nominee for president next year, and in mid-November Spitzer dropped the plan.