In a DREAM ACT Texas post of September 12, 2007 (Can't Get a Drivers License - How Do People Get to Work?) we described the nightmare of a life a person has if they live in a car town (like Houston) and do not have a driver's license.
Its incredible that people who are against licenses for undocumented immigrants don't see the the logic of everyone having a driver's license.
Besides the fact that its necessary for the drivers. For those other people who are driving around with licenses --
it provides much more security
because
1. everyone will have auto insurance. Many people who don't have licenses don't have insurance either.
2. Less likely that the other driver in an accident will leave the scene. This has been a common occurance since the restricted license laws came into effect.
3. The government can have a more reliable count of who is out there.
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Licenses for Immigrants Finds Support
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and DANNY HAKIM
Published: October 9, 2007
New York Times
ALBANY, Oct. 8 — Opponents have decried Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s move to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants as a “passport to terror” and a “frightening” policy shift that is “dangerous and inconceivable.”
... the governor’s policy is drawing support from some terrorism and security experts, who, like Mr. Spitzer, regard it as a way of bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road licensed and insured.
The success of the policy, they say, will rest on the reliability of new technology that Mr. Spitzer wants installed in Department of Motor Vehicles offices to verify the authenticity of passports and other documents that the illegal immigrants will be required to submit when applying for licenses.
Some of the new security problems predicted by critics appear unlikely, several security experts said. Having a driver’s license should not make it easier to board a domestic airplane flight, because foreign passports are already accepted as identification at airports. Moreover, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration said, neither a foreign passport nor an American driver’s license is among the criteria used to determine whether the bearer will be subject to extra security screening.
Further, while critics have made much of the fact that several of the Sept. 11 terrorists used driver’s licenses to rent vehicles and board airplanes, they were able to obtain licenses as apparently legal immigrants, if in some cases by presenting fraudulent documentation. As a result, the federal commission that investigated the attacks specifically declined to make recommendations on whether licenses should be granted to illegal immigrants, saying it was not germane to their inquiry.
“If you talk to people in the intelligence and law enforcement communities, when they’re investigating terrorists or crimes or unlawful activity, they want people to be in the system, because that’s how you find them,” said Margaret D. Stock, an associate professor at West Point who also works for the Army as an immigration lawyer.
“I’m a Republican,” she added. “I find it disturbing that people who claim to be law and order types want to let hundreds of thousands of people run around the country without any oversight when there’s a war going on..."
for link to complete article click title to this post
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