Can't Get a Drivers License - How Do People Get to Work and School?

Living in a car town such as Houston, having a license and a car to drive is not an option - its survival. While Los Angeles has somewhat of a mass transit system - its far from providing adequate transportation for the millions of people that live in the area.

So what is this perversity about not letting undocumented people have drivers licenses?

A few years ago when one of my students was a senior in high school, she completed drivers education and was ready to take her test; she found that she was no longer eligible because she was undocumented - the law had just changed.

Every university in Houston is at least 20 miles from her house. As many Houstonians know, the Metro Bus service is unreliable and extremely slow (it could take her 3 hours to go those 20 miles).

There are hundreds of students in the Houston area that are in this same predicament.- I can imagine how many in Los Angeles being that California has the highest number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Considering this, I have a message for California's governor Swarzeneggar and Mayor Villagairosa - You are intelligent men. You are well aware that undocumented immigrants are strategically important to California's economy. Why do you want them driving around without licenses? You know that people will continue to drive without a license because they have to get to work, or get themselves to school or their children to school?

Its a sadistic system when you think about it. CA, TX and other states don't allow undocumented people to have drivers licenses. CA, TX and other states need the workers. So how do these states expect people to do their jobs if they can't get there? They take chances, just like all the other chances they took getting across the border. They hope that if they drive very carefully they will never get stopped. But sometimes they run into a road block or someone else hits them... Now in Los Angeles they will be stopped and lose their car. Anything else you want to do to them?


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L.A. police to resume impounding vehicles today

Bratton's decision covers cars belonging to people without valid driver's licenses
By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 12, 2007


The Los Angeles Police Department will end its self-imposed moratorium on impounding the vehicles of unlicensed drivers today and does not need the Police Commission's approval to resume the practice, Police Chief William J. Bratton said Tuesday.

Bratton had said last week that the moratorium would remain in effect until next Tuesday, when he would ask for minor changes to the department's policy relating to the ability of officers to impound vehicles for 30 days, as state law allows. The practice has long been a contentious issue in debates over illegal immigration.

But the chief said that after reviewing the issue, he determined that the minor "clarifications" he wanted did not amount to a policy change and that he could order the impounds to resume immediately.

"These are clarifications of an existing policy," he said. "We are asking our officers to use common sense. We want all our officers on one page."

A lawyer who sued Los Angeles and several other cities in federal court last March over their towing practices said she would seek an injunction to curtail the impounds.

By not taking the issue to the Police Commission, Bratton avoided a potential City Council review of the commission's vote on the policy.

Such a review could have unleashed a battle at City Hall over what has long been a political hot-button issue, because many unlicensed drivers are illegal immigrants who cannot get driver's licenses.

In June, City Councilman Jose Huizar introduced a motion calling on the LAPD and the city attorney's office to determine the effect on the Los Angeles policy of a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in a case involving an unlicensed driver in Oregon.

In that case, the court concluded that such impounds violate constitutional protections against unreasonable seizure.

Police Commission member Alan Skobin said Bratton was within his rights in resuming the impounds.

"He was not proposing to change the policy, and he just wants to resume the impounds with some clarity," Skobin said.

For years, immigrant rights groups and some state lawmakers have sought legislation granting illegal immigrants a form of driver's licenses, but the bills have been rejected.

richard.winton@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-impound12sep12,1,4648521.story