Matthew Yglesias (November 05, 2007) - Should Illegal Immigrants Get Driver's Licenses? (Domestic Policy)

"So to echo first Hillary Clinton and now John Edwards too it really is hard to give the question a simple answer!"

The problem with Senator Clinton's debate performance, (and with her entire campaign), is NOT that she couldn't give a simple Yes or No answer to a complex question.

The problem with Senator Clinton's debate performance, (and with her entire campaign), is that she tries to answer on both sides of questions, tries to ignore difficult questions, and tries to deflect questions about her previous stands.

John Edwards is willing to say what he believes and what he's planning to do.

Senator Clinton is only willing to muddle and obfuscate.

(I think Marc took that post down because he realized how ridiculous his framing was, upon second thought.)

Posted by Petey | November 5, 2007 11:46 AM

It's flatly not the case that if it's illegal for someone to be some place then anything she does in that place is also illegal or not legally done. (Note also that immigration laws are civil and not criminal laws.) If I trespass on your property and then buy something, in the normal way, from someone who had the right to be there our transaction is perfectly legal and in no sense is it illegal or not allowed. Part of your argument here is fine- that it makes more sense to enforce immigration laws at some places rather than others, and that over-all harm is likely to be less if we allow illegal immigrants to have driver's licences, but the analogy you use to set this up is no good, in part because it's false.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | November 5, 2007 11:50 AM

Any way you slice it, "giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens" sounds like a vote loser to me.

Posted by Bill | November 5, 2007 11:52 AM

Hey everybody,

I don't know where I stand on this but...wouldn't the issuing of a license be a form of tacit sanctioning of the illegal person's staying in the country?

Posted by Gus | November 5, 2007 11:56 AM

The big complicating factor is the precedent for treating driver's license as identification and as de facto proof of residency. One can argue that the two should not be in fact coupled (I'd be happier with the way a lot of other countries do it), but historically and currently they are. Which sets up a tricky dynamic for the Democratic candidates wanting to defend issuing licenses to nonresident aliens: if they do, miraculously, argue the case for separating the identification and the licensing functions of the driver's license, they will be seen as doing so not because it makes sense but as a cave into illegal immigration.

Posted by Chris C | November 5, 2007 11:56 AM

Look, there is and has always been a relatively easy way to significantly reduce the number of illegal immigrants coming into our country. Establishing severe punishments for employers who hire illegal immigrants will do more to reduce the number of illegals entering the country than any other method-- although it will take time. It will certainly be more effective for the money than border enforcement or after-entry investigation and deportation. It's just like drugs: for years, the wonky thing to say about the drug war is that you can't solve the problem on the supply side alone. You've got to solve it on the demand side, because as long as there is demand there will be some in the developing world desperate enough to provide the supply. The same is true of illegal immigration.

The problem, though, is that it's absolutely clear that our political class isn't going to make any significant efforts against the corporations who hire illegal immigrants. There have been and will continue to be a few token actions to appease critics, but there has been no sign of a genuine coordinated effort to crack down. And that should surprise no one. Big business gets what it wants in this country. It always has. And no appeals to neo-populism, nationalism or nativism are going to be a serious challenge to that.

(ed.- but if you attack corporate America for any reason, you are being a paleolib, not a free-thinking iconoclast unafraid to stand up to liberal orthodoxy! I know! Quite a conundrum.)

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 11:57 AM

I was going to say something similar to what Matt (ntfo) said, that illegal immigrants commit an illegal act when they cross an imaginary line known as the United States border without a visa, citizenship, or other permission to enter. An illegal immigrant commits another illegal act if they get a job which requires legal residency, and in some cases a non-resident enrolling for various government benefit programs is also an illegal act (though this problem has been overblown by people trying to blame larger problems on illegal immigration). They don't have an illegal status, and thinking of them as if they do because of nomenclature just causes confusion.

Any way you slice it, "giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens" sounds like a vote loser to me.

A proposal to increase regulation of illegal immigrants and motor vehicle safety by requiring illegal immigrants to enter identifying information into a state-run database is both a way to slice it and I don't think sounds like a vote loser, though maybe you do.

Posted by washerdreyer | November 5, 2007 12:06 PM

driving over the speed limit is also illegal. can we automatically take away the licenses of people who do that?

Posted by cha cha cha | November 5, 2007 12:09 PM

On some level, illegal immigrants shouldn't be allowed to get coffee at Starbucks.

Why? What law would be violated in buying a coffee?

Posted by eric | November 5, 2007 12:10 PM

Starbucks is a bas example. Better example, should illegal aliens who fish require fishing licenses? Or should they be allowed to fish and hunt without a license.

Change the "frame" of the question:

Should illegal aliens be allowed to drive without a license?. Why should illegals get special lrights to drive without a license? IF a license was good enough for George Washington, it should be good enough for Juan Washington!

All of a sudden, not giving illegals licenses is being soft on immigrants. Win the bigot vote and do the right thing!

Posted by Ikram | November 5, 2007 12:15 PM

Freddie is right.

We could get rid of half the illegals in the country in a year, and maybe not even cost taxpayers a dime, if we cracked down on employers. But politicians on both sides of the aisle are afraid to say it.

As for the driver's license, the calculus of "minor policy benefit, but huge voter loser" is to obvious for Democratic presidential candidates to ignore.

Posted by Oberon | November 5, 2007 12:19 PM

What non-famous Matt said--and in fact, the 'everything you do while in the country illegally is itself illegal' is a standard line among the nativists.

In any case, the dispositive point is a practical one: denying driver's licenses to illegal immigrants won't drive them away, and won't stop most of them from driving (because we live in a backwards benighted country where most people have to drive), so the only effect of such a law is that lots of people drive without licenses. If anyone thinks that's a good thing, go ahead and try to argue for it, but I'm...skeptical.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 5, 2007 12:25 PM

Well, leaving politics aside, as far as I'm aware, illegal immigrants were *always* entitled to drivers' licences in America, until some Republicans in the CA Legislature during the mid-1990s Immigration Wars decided to focus on the issue, and politicians discovered it polled extremely well.

Seems to me, that if America survived a particular legal/social policy for the first 95% of its history with nobody even noticing or caring, it can't be so horribly disastrous...

Posted by RKU | November 5, 2007 12:36 PM

While it's not legal, as such, for illegal immigrants to be buying a latte at Starbucks, they also don't, in practice, need to pass a citizenship check or show a valid visa in order to do so.

Agreed. I have a big problem with politicians trying to require state officials, policemen, teachers, doctors, apartment managers, etc. to act as immigration officers.

It's not their job. It's not what they're trained to do. And they don't have the authority to detain or deport an illegal alien even if they did find one.

Spitzer is reacting to a state problem - the presence of a large, undocumented population living in the shadows. That's a recipe for real criminality, black markets, loan sharks, shakedown artists and corrupt officials.

It's in his interest, and his state's interest to know who these people are and ensure that they're following (and protected by) New York's laws.

But immigration is a federal responsibility. That's where Senator Clinton failed to make the point - state laws don't matter, federal ones do. Spitzer can give a license to whoever he wants. She needs to declare that immigration will be handled at the federal level and explain how she would do it.

Posted by Jinchi | November 5, 2007 12:42 PM

What's the plus side of giving them drivers' licenses, seriously? One would guess, it's to make our roads safer, because advocates of this aren't going to admit that the point is to make it easier for illegals to remain undetected.

But getting a drivers' license doesn't make you a better driver. In fact, all things being equal, it probably makes you a marginally worse driver, because you stop being quite so afraid of drawing the attention of a traffic cop, and so don't drive as carefully. (There's nobody who drives quite so carefully as somebody who doesn't dare face a cop!)

If drivers' licenses promote safety, it's because we hand them out only to people who know how to drive, and count on the people we deny them to refraining from driving, because it's illegal.

Being willing to violate laws is part of the defining characteristic of illegal aliens. Any illegal alien who fails the drivers' test will continue to drive. There IS no upside to giving them licenses. Only the downside of making it easier for them to be where they're not supposed to be.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 5, 2007 12:42 PM

In any case, the dispositive point is a practical one: denying driver's licenses to illegal immigrants won't drive them away, and won't stop most of them from driving (because we live in a backwards benighted country where most people have to drive)

What I don't understand about this whole line of argumentation is why illegal immigrants would go to the trouble of getting the drivers licenses MY wants to offer them.

You could say that illegal immigrants would get a license because they were afraid of the law enforcement consequences of not having one. But since there are no law enforcement consequences for their being here illegally, I don't see why they'd find fear-of-johnny-law a very persuasive reason to go down to the DMV and register. Then, of course, you have the practical problems of explaining to the undocumented population that they won't be arrested when they self-report their illegal activity . . .

I'm betting, if we do this, we go through a lot of bureaucratic hassle and end up with precisely the same situation. Illegal immigrants don't get licenses and drive anyway.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 12:42 PM

Why is driving without a license such a bad thing? All having a license does is confirm that you met certain bureaucratic requirements to... get a license. It has no direct relationship to ability to drive. For instance, I was able recently to renew my GA driver's license on the Internet for 10 years. For all GA knows, I could have gone blind, lost both arms in an accident, or suffered some other problem that makes me unfit to drive since I last actually went to the DMV, but they cheerfully took my money and mailed me a new license anyway. Not being able to get government licenses just seems like a common sense side effect of being in the country illegally. Want to drive with a license? Become a citizen or go back to your home country.

Posted by Ron | November 5, 2007 12:44 PM

But what exactly will change if they drive with licenses versus without them? A license doesn't magically transform you into a better driver, it just makes it legal for you to be behind the wheel. I would be willing to bet that many illegal unlicensed drivers are already much, much safer than legal licensed drivers. If there's no real improvement in saftey, then essentially all you're doing is giving illegal aliens government sanctioned IDs. And therein lies the rub.

Starbucks is a private organization. It is not charged with enforcing laws. Governments are. You can get into all sorts of arguments about jurisdiction, state vs federal, etc; but the fundamental point is that government should not be deliberately looking the other way in order to provide what is (defined by law in many states) a priviledge to people it knows have broken (or are breaking) the law and should not be here. It is a form of government sanctioned crime against government. That just doesn't make sense to most people.

Posted by Gheby | November 5, 2007 12:45 PM

Giving illegal aliens a drivers license allows them to get car insurance. That means that if they have an accident, their victim can be recompensed.

As it is now, all the victim gets is a view of the illegal alien's car trunk as it peels away from the scene of the accident. It is true that there will still be illegal aliens who had not pursue getting a license. But there would certainly be some that would.

Posted by tc | November 5, 2007 12:48 PM

Matt,

I applaud your attempt to think through a position on giving licenses to illegal immigrants, contrary to leading Presidential candidates. I agree completely with your assertion that we need to focus on workplace adherance to existing law. But I find fault with your Starbucks example, and what you draw from it:

"Coffee shops simply aren't a good locus for enforcement of immigration laws -- laws which ought to be enforced at the border, at airports, and at the workplace. The DMV seems to me to be closer to the Starbucks than to the airport in this regard. What, after all, does the policy of requiring verified legal residency before issuing a driver's license accomplish?"

Actually, for most inhabitants of the US, our regular though infrequent interactions with the local DMV is our only major interaction with government, aside from paying income taxes. (As illegals generally don't pay taxes, and can't file returns, they don't share that particular interaction with the rest of us.)

I'd say that makes it a pretty convenient and meaningful locus for enforcement. The rest of us at DMV are pretty thoroughly screened and vetted (tickets, points, insurance, warrants, etc.), so having the local DMV screen would be applicants for residence and or immigration status would not add undue burden on bureaucracy, or fellow applicants. (Case in point: county clerks not otherwise politically motivated don't wnat to comply with the change in policy.)

All of this aside from the very real function that DMV provides for registering drivers, validating proof of insurance. That of doing due diligence to ensure that those who drive are who they say they are, and properly indemnified in case of an accident with property and or casualty. That's so that honest, law abiding citizens don't get hurt or their property damaged by people with no insurance or fake identities. These purposes would be greatly impeded by allowing those in the US illegally to get licenses without proof of citizenships or residency status.

You have to know that illegals pass around phony documents (birth certificates etc.) as "part of doing business."

The thought that those who break all manner of laws will suddenly want to self-identify for licensing purposes, so they can buy car insurance they can't afford, so they don't have to drive illegally is absurd on its face.

The only likely illegals who MIGHT consider getting these are those with other ends in mind. Like terrorists, evidenced by the 9/11 terrorists who held multiple driver's licenses.

Posted by Dadmanly | November 5, 2007 12:48 PM

Periodically the government does something which on the face of it makes it easier for people to break the law. And in almost every case it turns out to be a good idea because when the government does something which seems on the face of it unpopular, they usually have a reason for it. One good example are laws that require slow traffic to stay to the right. Since in this country, slow traffic moves at the speed limit or slightly higher, this is clearly a measure designed to help people speed, because it is safer to make it easier to speed.

In general I think there should be two questions asked in such cases. One is, does this action actually get in the way of enforcing the law. If it was not made legal for illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses would we be catching and deporting a lot of illegal immigrants at the DMV? Would we be catching and deporting a lot of illegal immigrants after routine traffic stops? The answer to the first seems to be no. I don't know about the answer to the latter.

The second is does the law further a significnat purpose of the government. In this case the purpose is public safety, and it seems like the license program does.

Posted by Lon | November 5, 2007 12:49 PM

That the elites of both parties take positions on illegals that fly in the face of popular will shows how successful they've been at insulating themselves from the feedbacks that are supposed to make our government responsive to voters.

Posted by kafka | November 5, 2007 12:49 PM

I think you're all missing the point. Spitzer doesn't want to give illegal aliens drivers licenses to make them better drivers.

He wants to ensure that anyone driving on New York's roads has passed a driver's test and can buy insurance.

This is a response to a problem that already exists and he can't fight it by pretending he'll deport a million illegal immigrants from the state.

He doesn't want to get bogged down enforcing federal laws that he doesn't have the resources or authority to enforce in the first place. And he doesn't want a system that simply encourages people already here to continue to hide in the shadows. He wants to enforce New York state laws, not U.S. immigration ones.

Posted by Jinchi | November 5, 2007 12:53 PM

"Look, there is and has always been a relatively easy way to significantly reduce the number of illegal immigrants coming into our country. Establishing severe punishments for employers who hire illegal immigrants will do more to reduce the number of illegals entering the country than any other method..."

In order to enforce employer sanctions, employers need a reliable way of telling whether job applicants are legal residents. Any attempt to deny employment to mestizos who don't speak English on the assumption they are illegal aliens will get an employer a lawsuit from the ACLU. So employers would need to ask for some sort of verifiable ID to demonstrate proof of legal status. Real ID driver's licenses are one such form of verifiable ID; Spitzer's proposal is an attempt to go back to pre-9/11 standards when it was easy for illegals to get driver's licenses in most parts of the country, and those licenses weren't proof of legal status. It's bad policy and bad politics.

Posted by Fred | November 5, 2007 12:57 PM

Spitzer's proposal is an attempt to go back to pre-9/11 standards when it was easy for illegals to get driver's licenses in most parts of the country

This would have been a good point if it had actually become harder for illegal immigrants to get into the country since 9/11.

It hasn't.

Posted by Jinchi | November 5, 2007 1:00 PM

I am still a bit lost on how a Canadian who withdraws some US dollars from an ATM in Canada then slips across the border illegally into the US and buys a cup of coffee at Starbucks is committing any sort of crime by buying the coffee. One can argue at the extreme that his every step constitutes a separate violation of sacred US soil and that he should be given a life sentence for every footprint including those into and out of the Starbucks - but some really hot lawyer is going to have to explain where the crime in buying the coffee occurred. This isn't the Soviet Union: a human being in the United States doesn't need permission to carry out a routine purchase transaction.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | November 5, 2007 1:02 PM

Isn't the easy (and smart political answer) "No, illegal immigrants should not get a driver's license. What we need to do is make sure that illegal immigrants in the workforce have a real path to ctizenship; one that requires them to pay taxes, learn our language and history, and become true and equal members of our society. Once they do that, they will have a drivers license. But giving a license to an illegal immigrant is a tacit nod to continue living in the shadows, and that's not good for the immigrant or our society."

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

Posted by DCwolverine | November 5, 2007 1:12 PM

Cranky,

I may not be a "really hot lawyer," but I've been to law school, and I think you're probably right. There is no separate and distinct crime involved in buying coffee while you are present in the country illegally. Not in the same way that driving without a license is a separate and distinct crime.

Hope that helps.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 1:14 PM

"This would have been a good point if it had actually become harder for illegal immigrants to get into the country since 9/11."

It's a good point because it has become harder for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses in much of the country since 9/11. Bush and the Democrats have, it's true, resisted most attempts to make it more difficult for illegal aliens to get here in the first place, but after the second collapse of the amnesty bill, Bush's ICE has finally picked up the pace of enforcement actions against employers (although Kaus has questioned the real motivation for this).

Posted by Fred | November 5, 2007 1:16 PM

But getting a drivers' license doesn't make you a better driver. In fact, all things being equal, it probably makes you a marginally worse driver, because you stop being quite so afraid of drawing the attention of a traffic cop, and so don't drive as carefully. (There's nobody who drives quite so carefully as somebody who doesn't dare face a cop!)

So by extension, unlicensed drivers in general should have a better safety record than licensed drivers. Do they?

Sadly, no. So much for that particular bit of crazy-backwards-nativist-illogic.

All having a license does is confirm that you met certain bureaucratic requirements to... get a license. It has no direct relationship to ability to drive.

I don't know how they do things in Georgia, but here in California you have to pass a test (with both a written and driving component) to get a license. I happen to think the test should probably be more strenuous, but that aside, in order to get a license here you have to have a) at least a passing familiarity with the rules of the road, and b) an ability to drive for some short period of time without making any egregious errors.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 5, 2007 1:28 PM

Checking immigration status at a single retailer wouldn't be effective. Checking immigration status at all retailers might be. (Or it might just create massive black markets.) But the main reason we don't check immigration status at retailers isn't due to effectiveness, it's due to the burden on the transaction. This isn't the case at the DMV, where applicants already have to provide identification and residence information to be licensed.

The question is, what does this accomplish? It denies them legal driving privileges. And it denies them a form of identification that could be useful in a host of other circumstances, making their lives more difficult.

What is lost from this policy? Those illegal immigrants that do drive don't have to pass driving competency tests, and thus may not have much incentive to learn the proper rules of the road. And illegal immigrants can't get insurance, which is a burden on other drivers.

So that's really what you have to weigh in deciding.

The Starbucks analogy doesn't seem as relevant as, say, a hospital ER, where immigration status is ignored to encourage illegal immigrants to have serious conditions treated, which is both humane and good for public health.

Posted by Royko | November 5, 2007 1:30 PM

Matt I think there is a logical flaw here. Being a criminal doesn't make every other act you perform also a crime. If we extended that logic then we could say that it would be illegal to sell a cup of coffee to somebody who failed to appear in court for a traffic ticket. After all they are not supposed to be at that Starbucks, they have an affirmative responsibility to appear in front of that judge and every second they delay that is to thwart that legal responsibility. You could say the same thing to the guy driving with a broken tail light, or with expired license tabs. 'No drive through food for you Mr. Criminal!'

Illegal immigration is an event, you cross a border or you overstay your visa, I don't see that it makes sense to treat it as a existential state. Particularly since the government doesn't to my knowledge increase the penalties the longer one has been illegal, which is where the logic would take you if simply being illegal was a crime.

Posted by Bruce Webb | November 5, 2007 1:30 PM

The easiest way to reduce the most number of illegal immigrants, who may be criminals or terrorists but are probably just indentured servants or sex slaves, is to punish those as employ them, you know like, siezing their yachts, jets, and so on, as we do with "drug lords".

But, that only works up to a point and it is not really consistent with our "hold harmless" and generally soft approach to crimes of the very wealthy -- you know, wealthy non-white people who hire a brown or black person to kill their wife or business partner. Seen one of those white guys on Death Row lately? Ever?

A more definitive approach needs to embrace the "Seven Laws of (digital) Identity" and the sort of technology that is, actually, the logical inverse of "Real ID".

Real ID is a Tennessee earmark in the Defense Appropriation Bill that Democrats have chosen to preserve while leaving it an "unfunded mandate" otherwise. Actually, the infrastructure for Real ID has been extensively funded, for instance, here in Texas under other titles, sort of like "Total Information Awareness" and is being implemented for vote-caging purposes by John Tanner at the Civil Rights Division, although he calls it "affirmative action", so "commerce clause" liberals here support it.

The bottom line here in Texas is that illegal aliens should be able to document their participation in state and local government on the basis of dual nationality. That means they produce their Mexican, documents, and participate in a variety of reciprocal schemes that are also protective of Americans living and working in Mexico.

One of the objectives of such a program should be the isolation of criminals -- illegal aliens in both Mexico and the US -- as well as equality and progressive in economic matters generally, for instance, strong cross-border unions and efficient taxation of wealth, monopoly rent, and economic activity supported by public works like roads and bridges.

The age of air travel and digital communications poses some new threats to the legitimacy of all the North American governments. But, these are problems that can be resolved. The main obstacle is bi-partisan and bi-national concession-tending. And, that is wholly a Washington problem.

Posted by John Robert BEHRMAN | November 5, 2007 1:35 PM

Being willing to violate laws is part of the defining characteristic of illegal aliens.

In my experience arguing this issue face to face with a friend, this is a key point at which people's concepts of illegal immigrants diverge. I don't think the fact that someone was once willing to illegally cross a border tells you much more about their general attitude towards violations of the law than whether or not they jaywalk does, and probably tells you less than knowing if they've ever possessed marijuana does.

Posted by washerdreyer | November 5, 2007 1:36 PM

You guys are overproving here.

However much you may want it to be, the DMV is not Starbucks.

People at the DMV are interacting with the government, which is supposed to have some concern that new legal privileges are not handed out to lawbreakers.

If there's a bench warrant out for your arrest and you're pulled over, you're getting arrested.
If you report your income from drug dealing to the IRS, you're getting arrested. Maybe this situation should be different, but the starbucks argument doesn't prove it.

You can buy a frappucino with illicit income and you can get a latte even if there's a warrant out for you, that doesn't mean the government shouldn't enforce the law.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 1:48 PM

There's also the little matter of the linkage between driver's licenses and voter registration.

Posted by Fred | November 5, 2007 1:51 PM

Being willing to violate laws is part of the defining characteristic of illegal aliens.

That is also a defining characteristic of human beings. No law is more or less legally binding than any other. We just assign different levels of punishment for violating them. I'm unmoved by an argument that says "Illegal immigrants are people who have no problem violating the law," when the fact is that almost no one in our society has a problem violating the law, provided it is a law they view as inconsequential. Like violating the speed limit or being drunk in public or littering or jaywalking or similar.

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 1:59 PM

This is a really good discussion, folks.

Personally, I'm of the view that there is no real benefit to giving illegals driver's licenses. It doesn't make them safer drivers, etc. As others have pointed out, there is no safer driver than the one who wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop. Besides which, I would bet that illegals who pass the test for a license learned to drive well enough to pass the test by driving without a license. By the time they can get a license, whatever danger they present on the road has passed.

But then, illegal immigration is one of the very, very few issues on which I'm not an extreme liberal. Not out of any nativist tendency or law & order fundamentalism, but out of a liberal's sense of respect for the social compact: it just seems to me you can't join it by violating it.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 2:08 PM

If the DMV isn't qualified to check citizenship, they shouldn't be registering people to vote.

Posted by Thomas | November 5, 2007 2:42 PM

"That is also a defining characteristic of human beings."

Right, all human beings have the same attitude toward laws. That's why the Japanese behaved the same way after the Kobe earthquake that the blacks in New Orleans behaved after Katrina. That's why you'll find the same respect for local laws in Guanajuato and New Hampshire. That's why illegal aliens don't litter anymore than leftwing bloggers.

Posted by Juan | November 5, 2007 2:53 PM

Huh? If the DMV is Starbucks then illegal immigrants don't currently need to prove they are legal before they get a liscence, because Starbucks doesn't check your citizenship status when you buy a latte. So why do we need a new law? Your analogy falls flat on its face, mainly because the DMV is, uh, not Starbucks and many of them apparently do require some form of identification that at least indirectly indicates your status.

I'm sure there are some illegal immigrants out there who have guns without gun permits. We need to enable them to come out of the shawdos and get legal permits for those guns. The problem will be easier to manage -- and, really, you can't expect state governments that handle gun permits to enforce immigration laws -- that's just crazy! They are really like Starbucks, and it would be too inconvenient for everyone if you had to prove you were in the country legally before you got your gun permit.

Posted by jim | November 5, 2007 2:56 PM

As others have pointed out, there is no safer driver than the one who wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop.

And again: not really. Someone driving without a license obviously "wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop"; as it happens, that person is also several times as likely to cause a fatal accident.

Got it? Good. If I have to explain this a third time, I'm going to get very cranky.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 5, 2007 3:00 PM

Should al Qaeda members in the USA get their own driver's licenses ? Proper identification would clearly entitle them to Geneva Convention status that is currently denied.
What about Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah ?
For that matter, perhaps, driver's license vanity cards for Sandinistas, Black Panthers, Tupamaros, Basque separatists, Viet Minh, Bosnians, Bohemians, Nihilists, Tamil Tigers, Ulster Unionists, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Dominionists, Communists, Boxers, Janjaweed, Fedayeen, Underground Railroaders, Vegans, Dead Heads, and Earth First-ers ?

The states must step in and take up this matter on their own.

Posted by Neo | November 5, 2007 3:01 PM

This has nothing to do with "illegal aliens are dangerous drivers and we need to train and lisence them." (Absurd as that sounds.) It has everything to do with making life easier for illegal immigrants. You know, make it easier for them to get illegal jobs. Beyond absurd.

I love how the left is up in arms over the "rule of law" when it comes to the Bush administration, yet is so cavalier about it when poor brown people are involved. Just as love how the "Mexican invasion" fanatics on the right are up in arms over the "rule of law" when it comes to poor brown people, but couldn't give a rat's ass when it comes to the Bush administration. I actually support the rule of law no matter who is doing the law breaking -- novel concept.

BTW, the wi-fi in Bryant Park sucks.

Posted by jim | November 5, 2007 3:04 PM

Right, all human beings have the same attitude toward laws

It must be fun, when confronted with an argument you don't like, to completely and thoroughly misrepresent that argument and then attack the misrepresentation. Really. I should try it sometime.

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 3:07 PM

The DMV seems to me to be closer to the Starbucks than to the airport in this regard.

Kidding? next time you are at an airport, try and board a flight without a drivers license (or something even spiffier, like a passport).

Now tell me whether Dems want to make it easier for Osama's henchmen to sneak into this country illegally, get a valid drivers license, and board planes. That sounds like a real vote-winner to me.

Of course, since many places pretty much require just a drivers license in order to register to vote, maybe it *is* a vote-getting proposal.

Posted by Tom Maguire | November 5, 2007 3:11 PM

Now tell me whether Dems want to make it easier for Osama's henchmen to sneak into this country illegally, get a valid drivers license, and board planes. That sounds like a real vote-winner to me.

Jesus.

Once again, the 9/11 hijackers entered this country legally. And boarding an American plane only requires a photo ID to ensure that the person traveling is the person who's name appears on the ticket. There's no need for the ID to be American issued (or even government issued.)

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 3:16 PM

Damn, I hate this issue. You try to make an argument for the rule of law, and you find yourself standing shoulder to shoulder with this:

Right, all human beings have the same attitude toward laws. That's why the Japanese behaved the same way after the Kobe earthquake that the blacks in New Orleans behaved after Katrina.

Juan, you're not helping.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 3:16 PM

Contrary to popular belief and several well intentioned comments, DMV's do not, repeat DO NOT register anyone to vote. They provide, at most, and 100% in compliance with federal law (National Driver Registration Act, or "Motor Voter" Law) the OPPORTUNITY to register to vote at the time/place that a drivers license is obtained.

While to some, these may seem like quibbles or sematics, but they are crucial to this particular issue. If in fact one believes that DMV's register people to vote than you have a lot more to worry about than illegal immigrants voting, but rather whole classes of the citizenship population who are not eligible to vote but are eligible to obtian and have drivers licenses. Among the largest groups that would fit into this category are 16-17 year olds, in some states 15 year-olds, former felons who have completed parole, mentally handicapped, and all legal aliens who are not citizens. Each of these groups of people can obtain drivers licenses, but in many states are not eligible to vote. So if they are all being registerd to vote when they get their licenses why don't we have massive amounts of voter fraud.

The answer should be obvious, they aren't registered to vote. DMVs provide the forms, that's all. In some states, they go so far as to actually transmit the records electronically to a Registar of Voters or Secretary of State, but there is another, wholly seperate, state agency that is responsible for actually registering people to vote. Presumably, said agency recieves a DMV record and perfoms a number of checks to ensure that the person requesting registation is eligible to vote. If so, they are registered, by the Registar, not the DMV. If not, their request is rejected for any number of possible reasons.

In sum, at best there is an indirect, highly tangental link between issuing drivers licenses and registering to vote. None of this casts a judgment on whether issuing licenses to illegals is good or bad policy, rather it should serve to debunk the argument that voter fraud is an issue in that debate. It isn't, at least no more than it is for any of the other classes of people that I listed above.

Posted by mouldfan | November 5, 2007 3:18 PM

It has everything to do with making life easier for illegal immigrants. You know, make it easier for them to get illegal jobs.

That has to be the stupidest argument I've seen.

I love how the left is up in arms over the "rule of law" when it comes to the Bush administration, yet is so cavalier about it when poor brown people are involved.

New York doesn't have immigration laws. I have no problem with the federal government enforcing the law and deporting people here legally. I do have a problem with people who think every other civil servant is required to act like an immigration officer, even when that comes into conflict with their actual job responsibilities.

A Governor's job is to ensure that the laws of his state are enforced and making sure that there isn't an permanent underclass hiding in the shadows is a pretty big part of that job.

Seriously, the idea that you think a janitor from Nicaragua is at the same level as a bank robber or a rapist is pretty twisted.

Posted by Jinchi | November 5, 2007 3:19 PM

Being willing to violate laws is part of the defining characteristic of illegal aliens.

That's false. Once here illegal immigrants commit crimes and are incarcerated at lower rates than the general population.

Posted by bza | November 5, 2007 3:25 PM

MattY says: There's nothing that a person who's in the United States illegally can do inside the United States that is legal.

It should be obvious that that's a false statement. Consult that document called the Constitution. (Sheesh).

What, after all, does the policy of requiring verified legal residency before issuing a driver's license accomplish?

What an idiotic statement, but one we've come to expect from MattY. There's a reason why the 911Hijackers had licenses, and licenses that they were able to obtain because of lax laws designed for use by illegal aliens (CA) and even with the assistance of illegal aliens (VA).

Insofar as it would be inhumane, impractical, or uneconomic to drive the millions of currently-in-the-country illegals out, creating a relatively simple path to citizenship for them seems like a good idea.

Did a five-year-old write that? Allowing further IllegalImmigration is not "humane" for various reasons that MattY just can't understand. And, since even FredThompson has come out for attrition, perhaps MattY could try to understand what that means so he doesn't further embarrass himself.

And, of course, lots of things seem like good ideas. Until you actually think through everything involved. I encourage MattY to ask people to help him with that.

Click my name's link for thousands of posts with all the things about this issue that MattY doesn't understand.

Posted by TLB | November 5, 2007 3:26 PM

There's no need for the ID to be American issued (or even government issued.)

Incorrect. It does have to be government-issued: drivers license, military ID, or passport.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 3:26 PM

There's also the little matter of the linkage between driver's licenses and voter registration. Posted by Fred | November 5, 2007 1:51 PM

And that's the crux of it all. It explains all these lame justifications and comparing it to buying coffee, etc. Most people know it doesn't make sense to offer identification to illegals. They also know that it isn't turning the DMV into an immigration enforcement center to require the same information as everybody else to get their license. The object of having illegals get licenses is to head off the requirement of providing identification in order to vote or register to vote.

Posted by Bilby | November 5, 2007 3:29 PM

"Once again, the 9/11 hijackers entered this country legally. And boarding an American plane only requires a photo ID to ensure that the person traveling is the person who's name appears on the ticket. There's no need for the ID to be American issued (or even government issued.)"

"When Sept. 11 hijackers Hani Hanjour and Khalid Almihdhar needed help getting fraudulent government-issued photo IDs before embarking on their suicide mission, they hopped into a van and headed to the parking lot of a 7-Eleven store in Falls Church, Va. That's where scores of illegal alien day laborers ply bogus identity documents to other illegal aliens from around the world.

As I've noted many times, I visited this 7-Eleven while reporting on the national security-immigration nexus. It is a stone's throw from the Pentagon, where Hanjour and Almihdhar deliberately drove Flight 77 into the ground. The parking lot is still to this day often filled with "undocumented" day laborers whom President Bush never fails to extol for doing the jobs Americans won't do (or "aren't doing," as he now hedges). Local cops I have interviewed suspect that most of these men are here illegally and that they continue to facilitate trade in fake identification documents. But nobody arrests them. We are, as the Million Illegal Alien Marches have demonstrated, a de facto sanctuary nation.

One of the illegal aliens at that 7-Eleven was Luis Alonso Martinez-Flores, a 28-year-old Salvadoran who had been in the United States illegally since 1994. He got in the van and directed the jihadis to a DMV Express office nearby; they obtained photo IDs using bogus residential info supplied by Martinez-Flores. That info was also used on ID forms for two other hijackers.

The illegal alien earned $100. One hundred and eighty-four people paid with their lives."

^excerpted from a Michelle Malkin column

Posted by Juan | November 5, 2007 3:30 PM

Incorrect. It does have to be government-issued: drivers license, military ID, or passport.

I got onto a plane at Midway Airport about a month and a half ago with an ID issued by a private university.

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 3:32 PM

People at the DMV are interacting with the government, which is supposed to have some concern that new legal privileges are not handed out to lawbreakers.

'The government'? That's deliberately fucking vague.

They're interacting with the state government.

That's why your drivers license has the name of the state at the top, and not United States of America-- the governmental entity in this federal system which deals with immigration and citizenship.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | November 5, 2007 3:35 PM

"I got onto a plane at Midway Airport about a month and a half ago with an ID issued by a private university."

So basically it's pointless to deny driver's licenses to illegal aliens -- they could always just enroll in Ph.D. programs in American universities and get IDs that way.

Posted by Fred | November 5, 2007 3:38 PM

I wasn't saying that I wasn't mistaken, I was demonstrating the reason for my ignorance. If that helps.

The larger point stands-- terrorists can get into this country fairly easily with legal tourist or student visas. The injection of terrorism into the anti-immigration debate is a canard, a red-herring. It's a way to leverage the argument with the political muscle of anti-terrorist animus.

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 3:41 PM

MY posted:

"... And insofar as we ought to enforce the law more rigorously, we ought to enforce it more rigorously at the appropriate places most of all in terms of creating strong legal incentives for employers to avoid hiring illegals (I've previously been drawn to Mark Kleiman's point that we could simply create incentives -- including a valid green card -- for illegals to rat out people who hire them) rather than mucking around with the DMV."

We don't need to enforce the current law more vigorously, we need to change the current law so it actually prohibits employers from hiring illegals as opposed to the current law which in effect requires employers to hire illegals.

Posted by James B. Shearer | November 5, 2007 3:52 PM

'The government'? That's deliberately fucking vague.

They're interacting with the state government.

That's why your drivers license has the name of the state at the top, and not United States of America-- the governmental entity in this federal system which deals with immigration and citizenship.

I don't see what this proves. If there's a federal warrant out for you, local authorities aren't going to go out looking to arrest you . . . but if you walk into a police station and confess, it's a different story.

________

The injection of terrorism into the anti-immigration debate is a canard, a red-herring. It's a way to leverage the argument with the political muscle of anti-terrorist animus.

I'm not so sure. As I understand it, when you get a government ID today, the issuing agency at least goes to the trouble of verifying your identity in some way (birth certificates, social security cards, etc.). I have no idea how that process could possibly work if the DMV were compelled to issue ID to illegal aliens. And if there's no way to trust the identity on a government-issued ID, then I think you would be importing new security risks into the system.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 3:55 PM

Freddie idiotically says: The larger point stands-- terrorists can get into this country fairly easily with legal tourist or student visas. The injection of terrorism into the anti-immigration debate is a canard, a red-herring.

Tens of thousands of people from "SpecialInterest" countries have illegally entered over the southern border. "SpecialInterest" means: Iraq, Iran, SaudiArabia, Pakistan, etc. There have been at least a couple rings broken up, and two Hezb. members were arrested after having been in the U.S. for a year.

The insane plan called "ComprehensiveImmigrationReform" would have featured slap-dash background checks, because millions of people would have been involved and our wonderful partners like Mexico aren't exactly known for keeping good records (or being incorruptible). So, enough people with unknown terrorist ties could have been legalized under that scheme.

Believe it or don't, our government has produced several reports just about ImmigrationAndTerrorism. Here's one from three years ago, and here's one that's more recent:

tancredo.house.gov/irc/images/Investigations%20Subcommittee%20report.pdf

I'd suggest reading them so you don't embarrass yourself like MattY does.

Posted by TLB | November 5, 2007 3:56 PM

Sorry, the first three paragraphs of the post above should be in italics . . . not just the first one.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 3:57 PM

Tom Hilton:

"And again: not really. Someone driving without a license obviously "wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop"; as it happens, that person is also several times as likely to cause a fatal accident.

Got it? Good. If I have to explain this a third time, I'm going to get very cranky."

Someone driving without a license because he is too bad a driver to get a license is obviously a bad risk. However someone driving without a license because he is an illegal and not because is a bad driver is plausibly likely to be more careful driving than he would be if he could get a license.

Posted by James B. Shearer | November 5, 2007 3:59 PM

It seems to me the reason "Should illegal immigrants get driver's licenses?" is "hard to give a simple answer" is fundamentally because it's a misleading political question.

Sure, you can argue against the claim that an illegal alien is doing something illegal by existing within US borders, and so forth, but (important though it might be) that's beside the point.

A) The question is misleading because the agent in question is wrong -- "Should a murderer get a driver's license?" is clouded by the fact that a murderer shouldn't get anything but punishment. The question sounds like "If you were an illegal alien, and have the choice of getting a driver's license or not, what should you do?" The correctest answer to which is "Forget the driver's license -- I should undo my assumed crime by slinking back to my country of origin."

But point A), although rhetorically significant, is actually beside the point also.

B) The real question is "What should the government do regarding illegal aliens, some of whom drive?" Matt Y's answer is "the federal government should work hard to keep them from coming in in the first place, but after that, the driving license issue isn't the best place to try to catch the ones that got through." Which at least addresses the core issue -- the questioner cares about the illegal immigrants, not the minor detail of their driving.

The question as originally posed is presuming the frame that "it's wrong to be an illegal alien; the government can interact with illegal aliens when they get driver's licenses; the government should do something at every opportunity to correct wrong behavior; therefore, if illegals shouldn't have driver's licenses (a corollary of `illegals shouldn't be'), the gummint must so something about it. So, if you don't advocate putting the INS in every DMV, you must have a surprising answer to the question `Should illegal aliens get driver's licenses?'"

Many points commenters have made (state vs. federal, not the effective place to spend money, making every state employee enforce immigration law, etc.) address the assumptions in this frame. The short answer seems to me to be: "We need to solve the problem of illegal aliens on our roads by reducing the number of illegal aliens; whether they're driving with or without licenses, enforcement at that point is closing the barn door after the horse is gone."

Posted by Bob | November 5, 2007 4:03 PM

Someone driving without a license because he is too bad a driver to get a license is obviously a bad risk. However someone driving without a license because he is an illegal and not because is a bad driver is plausibly likely to be more careful driving than he would be if he could get a license.

Except that however plausible, as Tom Hilton has pointed out, that contention is refuted by data. (I think a debate on the reliability of empiricism versus deductive logic is a bit far of field for this thread.)

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 4:07 PM

This driver's license dust-up perfectly illustrates the difference beteeen Democrats and Republicans; whatever the merits of the issue, the Republicans would not have been stupid enough to identify with something as obviously controversial and politically dangerous as handing out licenses to illegal immigrants. And even if there is a good case to be made for the program, you sure as hell don't roll it out in October, just prior to the elections.

WTF???????????

Posted by global yokel | November 5, 2007 4:16 PM

Like Prohibition

This is not a hard question, and not a question of how or where our immigration laws can best be enforced. Some laws are stupid. Some of these stupid laws are obviously so, but some, and you can argue that our immigration law fits into this category, only become obviously stupid after you try to enforce them, and run into their practical entailments. But whatever kind of stupid we're dealing with, stupid laws should not be enforced, anywhere, anyhow. The practical stupidities that come to light when you run into trouble trying to enforce them should be a spur, not to coming up with slicker ways to enforce them, but to repealing them.

Why aren't any Dems arguing this line?

Posted by Glen Tomkins | November 5, 2007 4:18 PM

Bob,

At the risk of repeating myself:

In order to crack down on illegal immigration, you need workplace enforcement. Border control alone isn't enough, because some illegals come here legally (e.g., on tourist visas) and overstay their visas. In order to have workplace enforcement, employers have to ask job applicants for forms of government-issued identification that offer proof of legal status.

Real ID driver's licenses are one such form of ID. Spitzer's plan to offer non-Real ID driver's licenses to illegal aliens is a way to undermine this; if it passes, illegal aliens from neighboring states will go to New York to get these driver's licenses.

If an employer then denies jobs to applicants using NY State driver's licenses as proof of residency, he'll open himself up to a lawsuit from the ACLU claiming that he's discriminating against brown people and he has no reason to question their immigration status.

Posted by Fred | November 5, 2007 4:19 PM

But whatever kind of stupid we're dealing with, stupid laws should not be enforced, anywhere, anyhow.

I disagree. All laws should be enforced without passion or prejudice. The stupid ones should be repealed because their enforcement spurs political action.

Even if you're right that these laws are stupid, you're short-circuiting the necessary process of consulting the sovereign citizens of this country to see if they agree with you.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 4:33 PM

Why do Democrats want another 9/11? They oppose the use of waterboarding in extreme cases (e.g., 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed); they oppose surveillance of phone calls to places like Waziristan; and they support Elliot Spitzer offering driver's licenses to illegal aliens, like the ones used by 9/11 terrorists Hani Hanjour and Khalid Almihdhar.

Posted by Parallel Universe Version of Matthew Yglesias | November 5, 2007 4:34 PM

Contrary to popular belief and several well intentioned comments, DMV's do not, repeat DO NOT register anyone to vote.

8 of the 19 hijackers involved in 9/11 were registered to vote in the USA, all via "motor-voter".

Posted by Neo | November 5, 2007 4:38 PM

Why should immigration laws be enforced only at the border? What, if they manage to skip across the border they get a free ride? No; American laws should be enforced everywhere. If you rob a house are you only to be liable to arrest at the front door? If you go across town you're safe from arrest?

If you enforce employer laws, you don't have to deport people. If they can't get jobs, they'll leave on their own.

And why is it that the only alternatives being considered are either a) deport them, or b) grant them citizenship? Here's what I'll go for:

If someone here illegally has been gainfully employed, has not been a public charge (some brief period might be permitted) and has no criminal history (we're not talking speeding tickets here), and has a working command of the English language, then they could be allowed to become permanent residents. No citizenship, ever.. Their children would be permitted to achieve citizenship, but only through the usual legal channels for the same.

American citizenship must never be awarded as a reward for a criminal act. Permanent residency will be perfectly good enough for them. It enables them to be secure in their jobs and homes and to have citizenship for their kids.

Posted by RonF | November 5, 2007 4:47 PM

Global yokel really breaks it down. I mean, I don't usually like appeals to political pragmatism, but jesus christ. This is such little value for such a controversial stand.

8 of the 19 hijackers involved in 9/11 were registered to vote in the USA, all via "motor-voter".

And Lord knows, they wouldn't have been able to fly those planes into buildings if they hadn't been registered to vote! Or something.

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 4:48 PM

"And Lord knows, they wouldn't have been able to fly those planes into buildings if they hadn't been registered to vote! Or something."

Freddie,

The point is that if the 9/11 hijackers, who obviously weren't U.S. citizens, were able to register to vote at the DMV because we didn't have Real ID driver's licenses, then so potentially will millions of illegal aliens under Spitzer's proposal.

And this really is what it's all about: getting more reliably Democratic Latino voters, whether legal or illegal. It's all of a piece: Democratic opposition to requirements to show proof of citizenship when voting; Democratic support for amnesty for illegals and lax border enforcement, etc. Oppose any aspect of this attempt to illegally import another voting group that will be perennially dependent on transfer payments from Democratic politicians and you will be branded a racist.

Posted by Fred | November 5, 2007 5:01 PM

No. No. NO. The one biggest impact on me and you of refusing to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants would be that all the millions of illegals will all be driving anyway, but without licenses and without insurance. So when an illegal immigrant wrecks your car you will be guaranteed to come out of the affair with huge, unpaid repair bills on your hands.

Posted by W. Kiernan | November 5, 2007 5:15 PM

No. No. NO. The one biggest impact on me and you of refusing to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants would be that all the millions of illegals will all be driving anyway, but without licenses and without insurance. So when an illegal immigrant wrecks your car you will be guaranteed to come out of the affair with huge, unpaid repair bills on your hands.

This solution is just extremely remote from the problem. What about my neighbor's 13-year-old kid or the blind man down the road? Do I need to issue each of them a Drivers License so that they can be insured in case they crash into me?

Why not just have your state require that your car insurance contain an Uninsured Motorist Clause, as they already do in California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, etc? Then you'd be covered and we could still respect the rule of law.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 5:26 PM

Freddie:

"Except that however plausible, as Tom Hilton has pointed out, that contention is refuted by data. (I think a debate on the reliability of empiricism versus deductive logic is a bit far of field for this thread.)"

The linked data concerned people driving with revoked licenses and the like.

Posted by James B. Shearer | November 5, 2007 5:40 PM

Someone driving without a license because he is too bad a driver to get a license is obviously a bad risk. However someone driving without a license because he is an illegal and not because is a bad driver is plausibly likely to be more careful driving than he would be if he could get a license.

Except that however plausible, as Tom Hilton has pointed out, that contention is refuted by data.

Actually, as James rightly points out, it isn't.

What the data refutes is a contention that "unlicensed drivers don't get into more accidents than licensed drivers." The linked data address that directly, and refute it. Unfortunately for you, that's a contention nobody's making.

James is completely correct. The data Tom linked to simply do not address the question of causality. Do more unlicensed drivers get into accidents because they lack a license to drive? Or, do they get into more accidents because, as James hypothesizes, they are bad drivers? (Which is also, therefore, why they can't get a license.)

The data Tom linked to simply doesn't address that question. It demonstrates a correlation, but no causation.

It therefore remains -- again, as James correctly pointed out -- that somebody driving without a license because s/he is in the country illegally (and not because s/he is just a bad driver) is going to be a more careful driver.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 5:41 PM

t therefore remains -- again, as James correctly pointed out -- that somebody driving without a license because s/he is in the country illegally (and not because s/he is just a bad driver) is going to be a more careful driver.

Oops. Missed a word. That should read:

t therefore remains plausible -- again, as James correctly pointed out -- that somebody driving without a license because s/he is in the country illegally (and not because s/he is just a bad driver) is going to be a more careful driver.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 5:48 PM

Fred,

I don't technically disagree with you, at least at the start. My short answer to the question might suggest "enforce at the border", but the original question suggests "driver's licenses are a privilege aliens shouldn't have", so I think those even out.

I agree that forcing employers to demand proof that the prospective employees are legally allowed to work in the country is important.

I just don't agree that the driver's license has to be conflated with the employment issue. Every job I've gotten, my driver's license has been insufficient: birth certificate and a social security number, or a passport, were required. (When I had a job in England, I didn't have a driver's license, but I had to get a work permit on my passport.)

If some states want to offer a "Real ID" so their driver's license connotes legal status, fine; but NY offering one that _doesn't_ is not a significant change from the status quo, and _won't_ invite lawsuits on out-of-NY employers from the ACLU, any more than it did when I got my various jobs.

If the question was "Should illegal aliens get work permits?", you and I would be in complete agreement. But the question is about driver's licenses, which are how we regulate driving. Why the license should be forced to be anything else is beyond me.

Bob

Posted by Bob | November 5, 2007 5:52 PM

This illegal alien issue isn't that hard.

We have 4.5% unemployment and are still employing millions of illegals. We need them. I would announce that in two years we will crush any employer that hires illegals. I would then issue a green card to every worker that can pass a fingerprint check. We need to weed out the criminals. After two years, game on, and we start checking work sites. We crush and fine employers of illegals. After the two year point, we would only issue or re-issue permits in their home country. We need to have a mechanism to cut back on these workers if and when our economy tanks and they are really taking "jobs from Americans".

BTW - I know it is cold blooded but why do we have to have illegal kids and old folks in our country? Their countries are screwed up; got it. I don't see it as our fault. Why are they in our schools and hospitals? I would charge every legal worker a 10% flat rate "opportunity tax" and not dun them for social security because they don't need to hang out in our country when they are no longer productive.

Posted by danceswithgoats | November 5, 2007 5:53 PM

(ed- no one has mentioned your Mickey Kaus joke from before) I know! I'm bitterly disappointed. (You also seem to be inviting an awful lot of rebuttals on this thread personally addressed to you. Some invalid. Some, right on target.) If only your really existed!

Posted by Freddie | November 5, 2007 5:54 PM

The linked data concerned people driving with revoked licenses and the like.

The study included all categories of people driving without valid licenses, including a) people driving with revoked licenses, b) people driving with suspended licenses, and c) people driving who had never obtained a license at all. We know that people in categories a) and b) are 'bad drivers' (that is, they have been officially sanctioned by the state for bad driving); we do not know any such thing about category c) (we can speculate, but speculation has little value).

And by the way, people in categories a) and b) were 3.6 times as likely to cause a fatal accident as licensed drivers; people in category c) were 4.9 times as likely.

What the data refutes [sic] is a contention that "unlicensed drivers don't get into more accidents than licensed drivers." The linked data address that directly, and refute it. Unfortunately for you, that's a contention nobody's making.

Actually, the study I linked to directly addresses a contention made by Brett Bellmore upthread: "But getting a drivers' license doesn't make you a better driver. In fact, all things being equal, it probably makes you a marginally worse driver, because you stop being quite so afraid of drawing the attention of a traffic cop, and so don't drive as carefully."

If that were true, then people driving with suspended or revoked licenses (who stand to get in a good deal of trouble if stopped by a traffic cop) would be more careful drivers than people driving with valid licenses--which is clearly not the case.

It therefore remains plausible -- again, as James correctly pointed out -- that somebody driving without a license because s/he is in the country illegally (and not because s/he is just a bad driver) is going to be a more careful driver.

It may well be 'plausible', but nobody has offered anything to support this assertion, and I have offered data that, at the very least, suggest otherwise. In addition, we know that all licensed drivers have met some standard of driving knowledge and competence (however minimal that may be in some states), while unlicensed drivers have not. To suggest that going through the process of meeting those standards does not make one at least marginally better as a driver is counter-intuitive at best.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 5, 2007 6:23 PM

"Make the border tighter" is the equivalent domestic approach to the foreign policy approach of "go to war with all WMD suspect countries". That alone will not help. We are ignoring why there are so many illegal immigrants through vital lies. If we only threw more money at law enforcement and border control we could make the alcohol prohibition work and crush Al Capone. Only in this case we are often talking about nannys and gardeners.

Here is an approach that believes in taking human nature into account and that discusses how we can best accomplish our common goals of better life-styles and security for all. Getting Immigration Reform Right:

For immigration reform to succeed, it must contain a workable temporary worker program. Such a program must create a sufficient number of visas to meet the needs of the U.S. economy. A crucial flaw in the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform passed by the Senate in May of 2006 was that it capped annual visas at 200,000, a number far below the actual demand of the U.S. labor market.
According to Labor Department projections, our economy will continue to create a net 400,000 or more low-skilled jobs annually in service sectors like food preparation, cleaning, construction, landscaping and retail. Any visa cap below the actual demand in our economy will only perpetuate the problem of illegal immigration.

True reforms must also avoid stifling labor regulations that discourage legal hiring. Union leaders are pressuring Democrats to require that temporary workers be paid "prevailing wages" – that is, artificially high, union-level wages rather than market wages. This would be a recipe for failure, since many of the jobs filled by immigrant workers are low-skilled, low-wage jobs that would simply not exist in the legal economy if union-level wages were mandated. Adding cumbersome labor rules will only perpetuate the underground labor market that has been created by the current system.

Finally, any reform worthy of the name must offer a path to legalization for the millions of undocumented workers already in our economy and society. Deporting them all would be impractical – to say nothing of an economic and humanitarian disaster – yet continuing indefinitely with millions living in a legal twilight zone is also unacceptable.

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | November 5, 2007 6:40 PM

It may well be 'plausible', but nobody has offered anything to support this assertion, and I have offered data that, at the very least, suggest otherwise.

But it doesn't "suggest" that. That data doesn't (and, btw, I believe a quick check will confirm that as long as we're writing in English rather than Latin, the plural and the singular are equally acceptable with the noun "data") address this question at all.

I'm not trying to be difficult; I'm just trying to let the data say what it says, and not finesse it into answering questions that weren't asked and are logically distinct.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 6:41 PM

Another thing that, one would think, would help discourage illegal immigration would be to not grant birth-right citizenship to the children of people illegally in the country.

Apologies if somebody's already mentioned that and I've overlooked it.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 6:47 PM

illegals generally don't pay taxes, and can't file returns

Oh, really?

Building up a "good credit history" with the IRS is a help in improving one's legal status.

Posted by Thlayli | November 5, 2007 6:53 PM

Personally, I'm of the view that there is no real benefit to giving illegals driver's licenses. It doesn't make them safer drivers, etc. As others have pointed out, there is no safer driver than the one who wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop.

If this reasoning were valid, surely unlicensed drivers would be safer and better drivers on average. But this is manifestly not the case.

Spitzer's first responsibility is the safety of the public in New York State -- not enforcing federal law. His constituents pay federal taxes to a federal government that hires its own personnel to deal with enforcement of federal law. And surely Spitzer is correct in his reasoning: making illegal immigrants eligible to possess driver's licenses will make the roads of New York State (and other states as well to the extent that New York residents take the interstates) safer.

Why? Well, presumably your average illegal immigrant is going to want to be able to drive legally. After all, in addition to being a valuable document (lots of situations in America call for a government-issued ID), a valid driver's license and a paid-up auto insurance policy are good things to have if you're stopped by the police for a simple infraction. Far better to have these things than not in such a situation. Illegal immigrants, after all, are especially interested in possessing these items, because they're among the types of people most eager to avoid a trip to the police station.

So, the point is, giving illegal immigrants the possibility of possessing valid driver's licenses gives them a powerful incentive to do the things necessary to obtain them, such as learning the rules of the road and studying safe driving techniques in preparation for the exam. Almost certainly, making illegal immigrants eligible for driver's licenses therefore does make our roads safer. It also gets the names and addresses of such people onto databases, which may aid law enforcement efforts in the event they engage in criminal activity while here.

Spitzer is doing the right thing.

Posted by Jasper | November 5, 2007 7:49 PM

But it doesn't "suggest" that. That data doesn't (and, btw, I believe a quick check will confirm that as long as we're writing in English rather than Latin, the plural and the singular are equally acceptable with the noun "data") address this question at all.

First: the data don't have to say anything, because however 'plausible' your assertion is you still haven't offered anything to support it.

Second: your assertion rests on the more general premise that a driver who has reason to fear apprehension by the authorities will drive more carefully (in order to avoid being stopped by traffic cops); if the premise fails as a general matter, so does your more specific application of the premise. That premise appears to be inconsistent with the data to which I linked. Hence, the data do in fact suggest that your assertion is incorrect. Dispositive? No. Suggestive? Certainly.

Another thing that, one would think, would help discourage illegal immigration would be to not grant birth-right citizenship to the children of people illegally in the country.

Shame about that pesky 14th Amendment, isn't it?

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 5, 2007 8:17 PM

And by the way: yes, "a quick check will confirm" that many, many people use 'data' as a singular noun. They do so incorrectly. The fact that lots of people make the same mistake does not make that mistake correct.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 5, 2007 8:21 PM

Here in Central Texas I am surrounded by illegal people of all kinds.

There are, of course, hundreds of thousands of Texas residents who are out of status when it comes to immigration. Many crossed the border illegally. Many more came legally and simply overstayed their visas.

There are probably just as many Texans who have violated federal laws by cheating on their taxes.

And many many more Texans who are in violation of a host of other federal laws. Workplace violations of OSHA regulations are exceedingly widespread. Farms willfully violate federal clean water regulations. I could think of hundreds more examples.

The real question at hand is this: What is the state and local role in enforcing federal laws and regulations? Most immigration law violations are not even criminal but simply civil violations of one sort or another. By contrast, tax evasion is indeed a crime that can put one behind bars as Leona Helmsley found out. Do those who advocate for local and state enforcement of federal immigration laws also wish to see local police enforcing federal tax collections?

In addition to immigration enforcement, we could also require that all drivers submit their federal tax returns for audit by state DMV officials before they get their driver's licenses. After all, if you are an illegal taxpayer, what right do you have to drive? In my own highly Republican neighborhood I suspect a dragnet of police accountants could uncover hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes. Should the local police devote their scarce resources to enforcing the Byzantine federal tax code? From the point of view of criminality, tax evasion is a much more serious crime than immigration violations.

In the end I seriously doubt we'll ever see meaningful immigration reform in this country because too many interests benefit from the current system. Business interests benefit by having a ready pool of cheap labor that lacks the right to complain. Immigrant communities benefit from loose borders by being able to "jump the line" so to speak and bring their family and friends here without waiting decades. Federal revenues and programs such as social security and medicare benefit by having millions of undocumented workers pay into the programs without ever being eligible for benefits (you didn't think the government refunds payroll taxes paid by undocumented workers did you?). So 20 years from now we'll probably be having much the same conversation.

Posted by Kent from Waco | November 5, 2007 8:33 PM

First: the data don't have to say anything, because however 'plausible' your assertion is you still haven't offered anything to support it.

My point is: neither have you offered anything to support yours.

your assertion rests on the more general premise that a driver who has reason to fear apprehension by the authorities will drive more carefully (in order to avoid being stopped by traffic cops);

That's not quite true, but the difference isn't particularly relevant so I'll pass it over.

if the premise fails as a general matter, so does your more specific application of the premise.

Not so. Even assuming your premise above is completely true, it does not lead to the conclusion that unlicensed drivers as a whole will be involved in fewer accidents than licensed drivers. The aggregate accident rate of all unlicensed drivers is a measure of many, many things; many causalities are involved. That is the nature of aggregate data.

The plausibility of what I said is, therefore, not affected at all by that data. What I said remains as plausible with that data as it is without it. That data neither casts doubt on my argument, nor supports your counter-argument. It doesn't address the issue at all. So neither of us have produced supporting data.

Shame about that pesky 14th Amendment, isn't it?

There's nothing pesky about the 14th Amendment. I happen to be a big fan of it. It would do no damage to the internal logic and spirit of that amendment, however, to further amend it as I noted.

Emancipation and the immediate legal issues it raised are behind us (though obviously racism, voting rights issues, etc., are not). New issues have arisen, such that it perhaps no longer makes sense to grant automatic citizenship to everyone born on American soil. In particular, it perhaps makes no sense in the context of people who are violating by their very presence the social contract among all citizens.

I'm not saying we need to run right out and pass an amendment tomorrow. I'm saying we need to look at it as an option.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 8:46 PM

And by the way: yes, "a quick check will confirm" that many, many people use 'data' as a singular noun. They do so incorrectly. The fact that lots of people make the same mistake does not make that mistake correct.

Actually, in English, it sort of does. We have no Académie française. Usage determines correctness.

From the American Heritage Dictionary:

da·ta (dā'tə, dăt'ə, dä'tə) pronunciation
pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

1. Factual information, especially information organized for analysis or used to reason or make decisions.
2. Computer Science. Numerical or other information represented in a form suitable for processing by computer.
3. Values derived from scientific experiments.
4. Plural of datum (sense 1).

[Latin, pl. of datum. See datum.]

USAGE NOTE The word data is the plural of Latin datum, “something given,” but it is not always treated as a plural noun in English. The plural usage is still common, as this headline from the New York Times attests: “Data Are Elusive on the Homeless.” Sometimes scientists think of data as plural, as in "These data do not support the conclusions." But more often scientists and researchers think of data as a singular mass entity like information, and most people now follow this in general usage. Sixty percent of the Usage Panel accepts the use of data with a singular verb and pronoun in the sentence "Once the data is in, we can begin to analyze it." A still larger number, 77 percent, accepts the sentence "We have very little data on the efficacy of such programs," where the quantifier "very little," which is not used with similar plural nouns such as "facts" and "results," implies that "data" here is indeed singular.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 8:55 PM

Re: If the DMV isn't qualified to check citizenship, they shouldn't be registering people to vote.

More to the point the licenses New York would provide to illegals are "unsecure" licenses, which could not be used at airports, federal courthouses etc. An unsecure license cannot be used as ID for voting/registering to vote either.

Re: As others have pointed out, there is no safer driver than the one who wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop.

Which explains why the highways are so safe late at night on weekends at bar-closing time.

Re: I love how the left is up in arms over the "rule of law" when it comes to the Bush administration, yet is so cavalier about it when poor brown people are involved.

Um, the Real Id Act actually allows for this, otherwise no one would even be proposing it.

Re: There's a reason why the 911Hijackers had licenses, and licenses that they were able to obtain because of lax laws designed for use by illegal aliens (CA) and even with the assistance of illegal aliens (VA).

Irrelevant. If they had had no drivers licenses, they could just as easily have used their passports from their home countries-- and still could do so to this very day. The whole thing about them having drivers licenses is a huge red herring. Unless you wish to propose that we should not accepot foreign passports as ID (in which case no foreigner can come here, and our passports probably won't be accepted anywhere either), there's nothing we can do about terrorists having valid and accepted ID.

Re: Spitzer's plan to offer non-Real ID driver's licenses to illegal aliens is a way to undermine this

Um, no. Because non-compliant licenses are NOT valid ID under the Real ID act. Those licenses would not be accepted for any purpose that requires compliant licenses. Of the course the real problem with Real ID is that it's impossible to comply with anyway, and the act is being progressively watered down and its deadlines postponed as time goes by. The latest proposal is not to enforce it in full until 2018, and even then to exempt anyone over 40 from its provisions. Meanwhile nine states have rejected it outright and others may do so.
that.

Now for my own suggestion: Many (most?) illegal aliens are from Mexico. Doesn't Mexico have drivers licenses? Are they not valid in the US? I know Canadian driver licenses are valid here, and ours in Canada. Since Americans do drive to and in Mexico I assume American licenses are valid there. Why don't we just accept Mexican licenses as valid for driving in the US?

Posted by Jonf | November 5, 2007 8:59 PM

Emancipation and the immediate legal issues it raised are behind us (though obviously racism, voting rights issues, etc., are not). New issues have arisen, such that it perhaps no longer makes sense to grant automatic citizenship to everyone born on American soil. In particular, it perhaps makes no sense in the context of people who are violating by their very presence the social contract among all citizens.

Since you believe in punishing children for the sins of their parents do you also advocate denying citizenship to children of felons? In a very real sense they've broken the "social contract" to much greater extent than some ordinary hardworking set of undocumented parents.

Posted by Kent from Waco | November 5, 2007 8:59 PM

Now for my own suggestion: Many (most?) illegal aliens are from Mexico. Doesn't Mexico have drivers licenses? Are they not valid in the US? I know Canadian driver licenses are valid here, and ours in Canada. Since Americans do drive to and in Mexico I assume American licenses are valid there. Why don't we just accept Mexican licenses as valid for driving in the US?

Yes, Mexican driver's licenses are legal for Mexican VISITORS in the US just as American licenses are legal for American VISITORS to Mexico.

However, once one establishes residency in any US state, one must obtain a driver's license for that state. You can no more live and drive for years in New York with a California license than you can with a Mexican license. I expect the laws vary from state to state, but in most instances you have about 30 days before you need to get a drivers license in your new state. My wife was a legal immigrant from Chile with a legal Chilean driver's license. She had to go down to the DMV just like everyone else and get a Texas driver's license even though her Chilean license was still valid. It was no big deal, they just used her Chilean passport and green card as ID and gave her a new Texas license. Of course when her relatives come to visit from Chile they drive around freely on their Chilean drivers licenses because they are visitors.

Posted by Kent from Waco | November 5, 2007 9:10 PM

Irrelevant. If they had had no drivers licenses, they could just as easily have used their passports from their home countries-- and still could do so to this very day. The whole thing about them having drivers licenses is a huge red herring. Unless you wish to propose that we should not accepot foreign passports as ID (in which case no foreigner can come here, and our passports probably won't be accepted anywhere either), there's nothing we can do about terrorists having valid and accepted ID.

I'm not big on this argument either. But the problem, of course, arises when someone obtains false identification . . . which would presumably be easier to do in a state that grants licenses to those illegally present than it would in a foreign nation with ordinarily stringent passport controls.

-------
By the way, has any foreign country ever done anything like what's being proposed here? Though I imagine it's unlikely, I don't mean that as a gotcha question. I'd really be interested to see if there is a workable model for credentialling an illegally present population.

Posted by southpaw | November 5, 2007 9:10 PM

My first answer would be:

"My plan for illegal immigrants is the same plan the Republicans had when they controlled the Congress two years ago."

My second answer would be:

"We want to be careful about interfering with the free market."

Posted by Urban Sombrero | November 5, 2007 9:17 PM

As others have pointed out, there is no safer driver than the one who wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop.

Which explains why the highways are so safe late at night on weekends at bar-closing time.

This goes back to what I said about Tom's characterization of my premise being not quite accurate. See, I thought I didn't have to spell out the incredibly obvious. But since I've apparently been lumped in with the wingnuts and trolls, and therefore have to spell everything out in explicit detail, I hereby amend my original statement:

Among those generally capable of operating a motor vehicle, who aren't impaired by drink or other substances, or by lack of sleep, in combination with darkness or not -- IOW, among your run-of-the-mill, ordinary, garden variety drivers -- there is no safer driver than the one who wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 9:25 PM

By the way, has any foreign country ever done anything like what's being proposed here? Though I imagine it's unlikely, I don't mean that as a gotcha question. I'd really be interested to see if there is a workable model for credentialling an illegally present population.

Not that I'm aware of. I spend a lot of time in Chile, which has its own large population of illegal immigrants from Peru and Bolivia. A lot of the maids in Santiago seem to be from those two countries. And a lot of waiters and taxi drivers seem to be from Argentina. Since the language and cultures are much more similar it doesn't really seem to be much of a big deal to anyone. Bolivian maids and Argentinian waters in Chile raise about as many eyebrows as Irish bartenders in New York or Boston.

But understand that most other countries on the planet have some sort of national ID. The US is pretty unique in that respect. All Chileans carry a Chilean national ID card which looks something like a modern drivers license with photo and and security features. But it is just an ID card with a number on it that happens to be the same national ID number that Chileans get on their Chilean passports. You get your national ID number at birth, just like American babies get their social security number at birth (even though they are decades away from paying into social security), except that the ID cards issued to infants in Chile are actual ID cards not some silly cardboard card like the social security card.

But to answer your question. No, no country has really institutionalized illegal immigrants except perhaps for countries that have large war refugee populations and that is a whole different issue.

Posted by Kent from Waco | November 5, 2007 9:28 PM

Since you believe in punishing children for the sins of their parents do you also advocate denying citizenship to children of felons?

Wow. You really should go to work for the right-wing noise machine. You're a pro at their completely-unjustified-demonization approach to policy "discussion."

No, I don't believe in punishing children for the sins of their parents. It is no punishment to not give someone what is not rightfully theirs.

No, I don't advocate denying citizenship to children of felons. Committing a felony does not violate the very notion of citizenship; felons are still citizens and still have the rights of citizens. Nor does the citizenship of their offspring provide a direct incentive for people to commit the felonious acts in question, as is the case with illegal immigrants. (And no, before someone intentionally misreads that, I am not saying illegal immigration is a felony.)

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 9:35 PM

The problem with issuing Drivers Licenses is twofold:
1) you can use this DL to register to vote,(Illegally) and,
2) you can also use this DL to purchase guns in many states...(Illegally).

Not bad enough we are forced to pay $220 billion for the 70% of non-working illegals,and those who make under the allowable income needed for welfare, now we have illegals voting illegally for Hispanic persons, and we also have illegal gun toting illegals,...
We are not challenging the legality of the ANCHOR-BABY law, how much father can this illegal business go ?

Enough of a problem ???

Posted by jer miner | November 5, 2007 9:44 PM

No, I don't advocate denying citizenship to children of felons. Committing a felony does not violate the very notion of citizenship; felons are still citizens and still have the rights of citizens. Nor does the citizenship of their offspring provide a direct incentive for people to commit the felonious acts in question, as is the case with illegal immigrants. (And no, before someone intentionally misreads that, I am not saying illegal immigration is a felony.)

You're talking about the anchor baby issue. That problem is dealt with easily enough without rewriting the constitution or denying citizenship to children of illegals. Simply make the PARENTS permanently ineligible for residency and citizenship if they come to the US illegally to give birth. You don't have to mess with the constitution and/or create stateless children who are born in the US and spend their entire lives here but lack citizenship. Just get rid of the "anchor" part of the law. That way children of illegals can never sponsor for residency the parents who illegally can to the US to give birth.

Posted by Kent from Waco | November 5, 2007 9:57 PM

Suits me, Kent.

I wasn't actually thinking of the "anchor baby" problem so much as just the general incentive to improve one's children's lot by ensuring they are U.S. citizens (especially once -- from my lips to the gods' ears -- we get universal health care), but what you describe probably gets at 80% of the problem, regardless.

Posted by urbino | November 5, 2007 10:39 PM

Wow, this is a stupid post. You should be forbidden from prefacing any statement with "obviously." Justify what you think, don't just state it as if you are some supreme being telling us the way the world works from on high. You sound like the NYT editorial board.

Posted by Joe P | November 5, 2007 11:26 PM

Obviously, you are a troll.

Posted by urbino | November 6, 2007 1:04 AM

Re: You can no more live and drive for years in New York with a California license than you can with a Mexican license.

Actually people do this all the time. Matt himself has confessed to only just now getting a DC license after living there for years. The laws you cite are almost never enforced.

Re: But the problem, of course, arises when someone obtains false identification

Unless you're an 18 year old terrorist trying to get into a bar, why would you need false ID if you can use your Saudi passport to go anywhere and do anything?

Re: 1) you can use this DL to register to vote,(Illegally) and,
2) you can also use this DL to purchase guns in many states...(Illegally).

I said this above, but I'll say it again: The unsecure ID's that New York would issue could not be used for these purposes as they do not meet federal REALID standards.

Posted by JonF | November 6, 2007 6:33 AM

EIGHT REASONS WHY ILLEGALS SHOULD NOT GET DRIVER'S LICENSES

“We remain a hunted people. Now you think you have a destiny to fulfill in the land that historically has been ours for forty thousand years. And we’re a new Mestizo nation.”

“Our devil has pale skin and blue eyes…”

“We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.”

– Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez, founder of La Raza

"Around the year 2040, whites will become a minority in the United States and, believe me, it will be 'payback time'."

- Pro-Immigration Activist, Jorge Sanchez

“And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem.”

- African Studies professor, Dr. Kamau Kambon

"Blond hair and blue eyes are a biological defect."

"The white race is a disease, and the only cure is a bullet. The rule of whites is history. Soon they will be our serfs. It's now the Age of the Brown Man."

- Hindu nationalist, Ramesh Sharma

“The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists. Make no mistake about it we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as ‘the white race’ is destroyed–not ‘deconstructed’ but destroyed."

- Jewish studies professor, Dr Noel Ignatiev

Posted by David Hume | November 6, 2007 6:56 AM

Jon, nothing you said changed the fact that it is, in fact, illegal to drive in NY with a cali license. if you live in NY.

Also, people want to prevent illegals from getting licenses because we want to make them feel unwelcome. We want to make life difficult on them so that maybe they leave. It's really not that hard to figure out.

Posted by Soullite | November 6, 2007 9:30 AM

Among those generally capable of operating a motor vehicle, who aren't impaired by drink or other substances, or by lack of sleep, in combination with darkness or not -- IOW, among your run-of-the-mill, ordinary, garden variety drivers -- there is no safer driver than the one who wants to avoid the attention of a traffic cop.

Bullshit. Show me the numbers that support this.

We have no Académie française. Usage determines correctness.

The descriptivist standard you propose is even worse than prescriptivism. The only standard that makes sense is pragmatic: does a given non-standard usage enrich or impoverish the language?

Erasing the distinction between 'data' and 'datum' clearly impoverishes the language, by making it less possible to say precisely what you mean. It also distorts the meaning of 'data', by making it mean some singular undifferentiated mass of fact rather than a collection of individual facts.

Truth be told, I care about the misuse of 'data' less than about the parallel misuse of 'media'. It is impossible to say anything intelligent about 'the media' when using it as a singular noun, because the media are not one thing.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 6, 2007 12:11 PM

Why didn't the Republicans do something about this two years ago when they controlled the Congress?

Cause it's a fake issue. They're playing politics with this hate issue to whip the trolls into a frenzy. If they really cared, they would have done something two years ago when they controlled Congress.

Posted by Urban Sombrero | November 6, 2007 7:03 PM

The last time I had to go to the California DMV to change a mistake that was on my original driver license I had to bring in my birth certificate to prove I am who I said I was. How would illegal aliens that may or may not have birth certificates (or any other identifing certificates)prove that they are who they say they are.
I have no problem with giving anyone who passes the DMV requirements and tests a driver license but how do you stop people from getting driver licenses under assumed identities?

Posted by Robert Austin | November 15, 2007 12:07 AM

Should Illegal Immigrants Get Driver's Licenses?

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