DO YOU SUPPORT BANNING ILLEGALS FROM OBTAINING A DRIVER'S LICENSE? psss
Should Undocumented Immigrants Be Allowed to Get a Driver’s License?
The question is among four hotly debated ones on the Massachusetts ballot this November
Supporters cheering in June as the Massachusetts Senate overrode a veto of licensing undocumented drivers, but repeal of the license law is on the November 8 ballot. Photo by David L. Ryan/Boston Globe via Getty Images
Perhaps the most politically combustible of four questions on the Massachusetts November ballot seeks to repeal a law that’s fewer than five months old: allowing undocumented immigrants to get a driver’s license.
Governor Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, sided with the immigrant-wary wing of his party and vetoed the bill, but then lawmakers overrode him, and so the law has remained in place. A group led by the mother of a man killed by an undocumented driver mobilized to put a repeal of the law on the ballot. A “yes” vote supports retaining the law and allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver’s license; a “no” vote supports repeal and prevents them from getting a license.
The other three questions: one would impose a millionaire’s tax, another would hike the number of beer and wine licenses permitted to individual retailers, and the third would require dental insurance plans to spend a minimum percentage of premiums on care.
Early in-person voting opened last week ahead of the November 8 Election Day and runs until November 4. Voting by mail also is underway. The mandatory written request for a mail-in ballot must arrive at your local election office by 5 pm on November 1. Apply for a mail-in ballot online here.
As it stands, the driver’s license law, to take effect next year, limits undocumented immigrants to standard licenses, not REAL ID ones. (Next May is the application deadline for REAL ID licenses, which will be required for domestic flights and entry into certain federal facilities.) Undocumented applicants will have to show at least two official forms of ID for a driver’s license and prove that they live in Massachusetts.
An estimated 45,000 to 50,000 people could get licenses in the next three years under the law. Massachusetts is one of the first states to put repeal of the law to a vote.
In his veto message, Baker wrote, “I cannot sign this legislation because it requires the Registry of Motor Vehicles [RMV] to issue state credentials to people without the ability to verify their identity. The Registry does not have the expertise or ability to verify the validity of many types of documents from other countries.” Baker also cited the potential for undocumented people to use licenses to register to vote illegally in elections.
The governor’s Registry concern “is a frivolous argument,” says Sarah Sherman-Stokes, a School of Law clinical associate professor of law and associate director of its Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Clinic.
“The RMV already examines people’s immigration and identification documents to confirm whether they are eligible under current law,” Sherman-Stokes says. “If Governor Baker doesn’t have confidence in RMV employees, then he should pay to increase their training and hire additional workers. Denying members of our community the right to live and work in the commonwealth is not the answer.”
Similarly, she calls illegal voting worries “an argument with no basis that appeals to a particular group of voters.” There’s no evidence from jurisdictions that give undocumented immigrants licenses—16 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia—that the policy increases voter fraud, she says. And at any rate, “alleged voter fraud by noncitizens has been dramatically overblown and unfounded.”
After Connecticut and California authorized licenses for undocumented people, hit-and-runs fell in both states. In Connecticut, the drop was especially large in communities with higher percentages of licenses that could be used for driving only (such as those possessed by undocumented drivers).
“Utah and New Mexico have seen uninsured driving drop 80 and 60 percent, respectively,” since licensing undocumented drivers, Sherman-Stokes says. “This bill is also endorsed by all 42 police chiefs in the Massachusetts Major Cities Chief of Police Association, as well as more than 60 law enforcement officials across the state.” Passage would help undocumented workers, she adds: “For people to be able to feed their families, pay their rent, get their children to school and to doctor’s appointments safely, we need them to be licensed. Undocumented members of our community don’t want to drive without a license—but often, they have no choice.”
The remaining ballot questions would:
- Impose a 4 percent income tax, beyond the state’s current 5 percent flat-rate tax, on incomes above $1 million, constitutionally earmarking the money raised for education and transportation.
Supporters, including unions and several activist groups, say the pandemic and the failures of the MBTA transit system underscore the need to raise money to invest in these areas, especially to benefit communities of color. They say voters could hold legislators accountable for spending the revenue as intended, and that the current state surplus isn’t enough to guarantee the years of investment that schools and transit need.
Several business groups oppose the tax, saying it would hit the (small) number of “one-time” millionaires who temporarily profit from the sale of their home or business; could drive millionaires from the state or crimp their job creation and business investments; that lawmakers can’t be trusted to put the revenue towards increased education and transportation spending; and that the federal deductibility of state taxes would allow millionaires to deduct the tax increase from their federal tax obligation, a regressive break.
- Increase the number of liquor licenses that food retailing chains, such as supermarkets and convenience stores, could have to sell beer and wine for off-premises consumption. The number is now 9—a number that impedes every store in many chains from selling beer and wine—but would rise to 18 by 2031; however, only 7 of those could be full licenses to sell beer, wine, and liquor. The measure also would ban in-store automated and self-checkout sales of alcohol.
The ballot question follows a long tussle between package stores and food stores. The former support the measure as a fair compromise with food stores that seek more beer and wine licenses. But supermarket and convenience store opponents say the compromise isn’t enough and that caps on liquor licenses give an unfair edge to package stores. The latter fear for their survival if corporate chains don’t face some cap.
A Tufts University report anticipates negligible effects from passage on alcohol consumption and consumer convenience: the changes would not affect restaurants and bars and would leave licensing in the hands of local authorities.
- Require dental insurance plans to spend at least 83 percent of their premium revenue on medical care, rather than administration, taxes, and revenue. (There is no mandatory minimum currently.) If an insurer’s “medical loss ratio,” the portion of its premium revenue spent on care, fell below 83 percent, it would have to send rebates to its subscribers.
Supporters, including groups representing dentists and other dental care professionals, say the law would provide better coverage to patients by removing an incentive to deny claims and to overpay their officials with money from excess premiums. Opponents, including dental and other insurers, say the law would force insurers to raise premiums to cover the required spending while still covering administrative costs. This could spur people to drop dental coverage or limit their dental visits, they warn.
Another Tufts analysis concludes that passage likely would have little impact on consumer costs and that most insurers, save for “smaller, less efficient” ones, could live with the 83 percent requirement.
More than a million undocumented immigrants gained driver’s licenses in California
In summary
Seven years after the Safe and Responsible Drivers Act gave undocumented residents a license to drive, the state is ready to expand its impact, but the law still has detractors.
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On a recent night, by the Miramar Reservoir in San Diego County, a man named Erwin sat at a picnic table scrolling through dozens of texts from his wife. He read aloud her warnings about police patrolling a road near their home.
“‘There’s a lot of cops out tonight,’” he read. “Cops everywhere.’ ‘Be careful; lots of cops.’ ‘Too many cops.’
“Every time I want to get a burger or juice or anything like that and I leave the house, she will text me ‘There’s a lot of cops. Be careful,’” Erwin explained. “It’s a reality that we live in. We adapt our life and our every day to it.”
Erwin, who asked not to use his last name for fear of deportation, is a 27-year old business manager, husband and father of a 6-month-old baby girl. He’s also a Congolese immigrant whose visa expired. His wife, a U.S. citizen, fears what would happen if police stop him.
Although California is a sanctuary state — with protections for immigrants who lack documentation authorizing them to be in the United States — there are loopholes and law enforcement sometimes works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Beyond that, Erwin worries a traffic stop might escalate. “Believe me, in my country, I would never have to worry about getting pulled over and being scared that they’re going to shoot me,” he said.
Erwin wants to swap his foreign driver’s license for a California one.
“Before I didn’t have a family, so I could risk it,” he said, “but now I have my family and I drive my kid everywhere we go. So I decided to get right and get the driver’s license, so it’s less of an issue if I get pulled over.”
A license to drive
Erwin has made multiple attempts to obtain an AB 60 driver’s license. It’s a special license that lets undocumented California residents legally drive, but with federal limitations.
Proponents say the special license was a boon to immigrants and the state’s economy. But critics, and even some immigrant advocates, say it has drawbacks and risks, since law enforcement and immigration officials can access it. Nevertheless the state is expanding its flexibility, giving IDs to more undocumented residents.
California lawmakers first passed AB 60, called the Safe and Responsible Drivers Act, in 2013, as part of a broad effort to adopt more inclusive policies toward immigrants, to decriminalize their daily lives and maximize their contributions to the economy, experts said.
Since the law took effect in 2015, more than a million undocumented immigrants, out of an estimated 2 million, have received licenses, and more than 700,000 have renewed them.
Besides California, 18 other states have followed suit.
‘I feel like that’s a very important psychological piece, in the sense of ‘This is who I am. I have an ID to show you who I am.’
Shiu-Ming Cheer of California Immigrant Policy Center
“With AB 60, what we did was recognize the needs of many hard-working immigrants living here and contributing so much to our great state,” said Luis Alejo, the former Assembly member from Watsonville who authored the bill. Now he is a county supervisor for Monterey County.
Undocumented immigrants in California contribute $3.1 billion a year in state and local taxes; nationally they contribute $11.7 billion in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington D.C. research entity.
New legislation signed in September will make other California ID’s available in January to undocumented immigrants who don’t drive or who can’t take the driver’s test. Backers of that measure say residents most likely to benefit are the elderly and people with disabilities.
“IDs are needed for so many aspects of everyday life, from accessing critical health benefits, to renting an apartment,” said Shiu-Ming Cheer, deputy director of programs and campaigns at the California Immigrant Policy Center, a sponsor of the law.
Experts say more flexible ID laws may do more than help people on an individual level. Eric Figueroa, a senior manager at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said licenses enable undocumented immigrants to look for better jobs and gain better protections from employers trying to steal or withhold wages.
“It helps build the economy broadly — by unlocking people’s potential — and it helps the workers by giving them more options,” he said.
Erwin uses family connections to remotely renew his Congo license — a privilege he noted not everyone has. Being able to drive allowed his family to move to a better neighborhood and him to find better employment in a suburb about 25 miles away, he said.
‘With AB 60, what we did was recognize the needs of many hard-working immigrants living here.’
Luis Alejo, former Assembly member from Watsonville
No one has studied how many people have garnered better jobs as a result of the special licenses. Alejo said many of his constituents describe “profound economic impacts,” but he agrees more research is needed.
Some opponents of the licenses say their economic benefits are likely negligible. Instead it is encouraging illegal migration to California, they say, which further strains the state’s budget to provide education and other services.
More than that, it makes undocumented residents too comfortable, critics argued.
Before the special licenses, immigrants said they feared routine traffic stops and drunk-driving checkpoints, where their vehicles could be impounded for not having a driver’s license. Many also could face deportation proceedings after being contacted by police.
“Community members used to share that they always used to have to buy beat-up cars because they always knew it would get impounded,” said Erin Tsurumoto Grassi, policy director at Alliance San Diego, a community organization focused on equity issues.
“Folks were always losing their vehicles because they didn’t have a license. They didn’t have the ability to have a license,” she said.
Accident trends
Some opponents of the special license law claimed it would make roadways less safe, because some immigrant drivers wouldn’t be able to read traffic signs in English.
But a 2017 study by the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University showed those safety concerns were speculative. The rate of total accidents, including fatal accidents, did not rise and the rate of hit-and-run accidents declined, which likely improved traffic safety and reduced overall costs for California drivers, researchers said.
The study, which documented a 10% decline in hit-and-run accidents, ran in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in April 2017.
“Coming to this as scientists, we were immediately shocked by the absence of facts in this debate,” said Jens Hainmueller, a Stanford political science professor and co-director of the lab. “Nobody was drawing on any evidence; it was more characterized by ideology.”
Other research by Hans Lueders, a postdoctoral research associate for the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice at Princeton University, found AB 60 did not improve insurance premiums nor increase the share of uninsured drivers.
Are license holders safe?
Questions persist about whether the special licenses make recipients easier targets for immigration enforcement.
Some immigrant advocates initially opposed the new licenses because they looked different from other driver’s licenses. On the front of the cards’ upper right side is “Federal Limits Apply” instead of the iconic gold bear of California. On the back the cards say: “This card is not acceptable for official federal purposes.”
Alejo said legislators had intended to protect people from immigration enforcement, so they wrote certain protective measures into the original AB 60 bill. They added language prohibiting state and local government agencies from using the special license to discriminate against license holders or for immigration enforcement.
Yet some advocates point to reports of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accessing the databases of state and local law enforcement agencies and of state departments of motor vehicles.
In December 2018, the ACLU of Northern California and the National Immigration Law Center published a report detailing multiple ways federal immigration agencies get access to motor vehicle records. After that, the California Attorney General’s Office implemented new protocols to protect immigrants’ DMV information from ICE and other agencies.
A chilling effect
Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said there is always going to be a risk someone will misuse data on undocumented people.
“I wouldn’t say that people should feel 100% safe,” he said.” I would just say that the risk has been lessened quite a bit … but that does not mean the risk has totally gone away.”
In recent years there has been a large drop-off in the number of immigrants applying for AB 60 licenses. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, 396,859 immigrants applied for the licenses in fiscal 2014-15, but only 68,426 applied in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2022.
Advocates said that may be because most people who wanted a license applied for it already, or because education and outreach about the law have lessened over the years.
Cheer said news of ICE accessing California databases could have a chilling effect on immigrants’ willingness to interact with government.
“It does create more of a trust deficit with government agencies whenever there is a story about ICE having access to California databases or information in California databases,” she said.
Being seen
On the other hand, there’s an added benefit to the new licenses, Cheer said: immigrants now have a feeling of being included and acknowledged as residents of California.
“I feel like that’s a very important psychological piece, in the sense of ‘This is who I am. I have an ID to show you who I am,’” she said.
Erwin said he carefully weighed the possibility that he would be effectively giving ICE his home address against wanting to have the proper paperwork, so there would be no excuse for a police officer to escalate a traffic stop with him. He decided one risk was worth reducing the risk of the other.
For some immigrants, the passage of the license law didn’t come soon enough.
Dulce Garcia, an attorney and advocate for immigrants, recently described at a San Diego public forum on immigration enforcement what happened when police stopped her brother who was undocumented.
Police cited Edgar Saul Garcia Cardoso for driving without a license and when he appeared in a courthouse in January 2020 to face the consequences, ICE detained and deported him, within hours, to Tijuana, she said.
There he was kidnapped, held for ransom and tortured for eight months, Garcia said.
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In May 2021, he returned to the United States and received asylum protections. But he never recovered from the trauma, Garcia said. He died of unknown causes in September 2022.
“I wish there was a way you could see through my eyes the harm you have caused by colluding with ICE,” Garcia told law enforcement officials at the forum. “Edgar was loved, and his life mattered.”
