Photo: Eliot Spitzer, APA few days ago I was at the airport waiting to board to flight when I heard a man sitting in front of me telling someone on his cell phone that he was going to New York to testify regarding the proposed Driver's License law for immigrants.
My curiousity was so intense, I did something I don't usually do, I went up to him, told him I was writing a book on the DREAM ACT and asked him what his role was in the driver's license issue.
He is a "fellow" at the National Center for Immigration Studies, one the primary anti-immigration organizations in Washington. I thought to myself, well it will be good to have a conversation with someone from the other side. The dialogue started out fine. But as the minutes went on his voice began more intense - his anger was almost rabid. I very nicely tried to ask him why U.S. citizens became so enraged over the issue. I still can't see what Americans are really losing with immigration. His response was even more angry. He said that undocumented immigrants were taking everything from us, that they were bringing crime etc etc. He said he was a good friend of Lou Dobbs.
The conversation became a monologue and I decided that if I ever ran into someone like that again, I would lay out the rules first..."I will only talk to you if I have equal time."
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October 21, 2007
Editorial
New York’s Fight Over Driver’s Licenses
In an effort to make New York’s highways safer, Gov. Eliot Spitzer has stepped in the middle of a bitter national argument about immigration....
...Mr. Spitzer is trying to make certain there is a safe driver behind the wheel of every car. That is no small matter. More than 40,000 people die in car crashes in the United States every year, more than 3,000 of them in New York State.
To help lower that toll, Mr. Spitzer recently announced that New York would join eight other states that do not require licensed drivers to prove that they are in the country legally. Instead, prospective drivers will need to prove exactly who they are, that they can drive safely, that they have car insurance, and that they live in New York State.
.... Richard Clarke, an adviser under the last four presidents, mostly on national security issues, has said that making driver’s licenses available to immigrants regardless of their legal status would promote security because “it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads."
The frustrations of the plan’s critics are understandable, but their quarrel is with Washington, which continues to avoid addressing the immigration problem head-on. Mr. Spitzer’s proposal for making driver’s licenses more broadly available is a calm injection of reason into a subject that has seen too little of it.
for complete article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21sun3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
photo: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/off_the_news/
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