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Don’t Be A Moron. Give Illegal Aliens Drivers Licenses. |
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Yesterday in Michigan a law went into effect that will ban undocumented aliens from getting drivers licenses. All but a few states have now cracked down on illegal immigration by refusing to issue licenses to those who cannot prove their resident status, sparking a debate that has made the Democratic presidential candidates more than a little uncomfortable this election.
As with most anti-immigration policies, there is a certain shallow logic behind denying illegal aliens drivers licenses. For whatever reason state-issued licenses have become ubiquitously-accepted ID in the U.S., allowing us to do things like take commercial flights. All the hijackers on 9/11 had licenses, so naturally we can conclude that had they been denied drivers licenses they never would have attacked our country.
Whatever.
9/11 had nothing to do with drivers licenses, just like illegal immigration has nothing to do with drivers licenses. Americans are angry about illegal immigration because some extremely deft politicians have bamboozled us into believing that rowdy Mexicans are responsible for stealing “our” jobs, stealing our healthcare, and making our streets more dangerous, all of which will be rectified if we just stop doing things like issuing them drivers licenses.
The American Resistance, a particularly scary organization dedicated to keeping illegal immigrants out of America, adds this enlightening remark to the drivers license debate:
One of the arguments in favor of issuing drivers licenses to illegal aliens is that it will make our roads safer. This is not likely, as someone who has broken U.S. law to come here will most likely continue to break our laws - including traffic laws - and to drive without insurance and to obtain “breeder” licenses under false names.
First of all, what the hell is a “breeder” license?
Second, by this very argument illegal aliens have little incentive to observe easily-transgressible laws — like traffic laws — when their very existence is already a crime.
While it is true that a licensed illegal driver may “continue to break our laws” and speed recklessly down the freeway, there is nothing about driving recklessly that is exclusive to illegal immigrants. Moreover, given a choice do you think a reckless illegal driver would rather drive without a license if one were available to him? Do you think he would rather put himself at risk of being pulled over and ticketed or being pulled over and deported?
I come from a city chock-full of illegal aliens, and can assure you that driving without proper documentation — just like working, traveling, marrying, raising families, and breathing without documentation — doesn’t deter anyone from coming to America. Illegal aliens will drive regardless of whether we issue them licenses, but issuing them anyway is the only meaningful incentive we have — short of barricading all the nation’s roads — to make sure individuals have at least seen the rulebook and the inside of a car before getting behind the wheel.
What’s more, the ill judgment surrounding states’ decision to ban undocumented residents from obtaining licenses is indicative of a much larger and deeper set of misguided attitudes toward illegal immigration. Aside from the very real concern that to be “anti-immigration” is to be fundamentally against our heritage as Americans, it is also just plain stupid, for the same reason that criminalizing drugs and prostitution is also stupid. People need an incentive to go about their lives in a way that doesn’t threaten public safety, and relegating them and their activities to the shadows encourages exactly the opposite. Deny a man status and he is neither protected by nor subject to the law. Give a man status and he becomes part of our system, and therefore has something to lose by not obeying the law.
Making the lives of illegal aliens more and more illicit is thus doubly moronic. It neither deters immigration nor enhances public safety. It’s time the Democratic candidates start framing the illegal immigration debate in terms of its root causes — like global poverty — rather than its symptoms. To not do so is to facilitate the degradation of public safety on our roads, and in a country as dependent on car travel as ours, this would be a very bad thing.
There are some Americans who are ‘anti-immigration’, granted. But they are a fringe element. Most people are anti- illegal immigration. There is a huge difference. Illegal immigration devalues and debases American citizenship by accepting that anyone from anywhere can just come to this land, remain here undocumented, scratch out an existence in the shadows, pay no taxes yet indefinitely live off of the social programs we have in place while contributing nothing to the common good. I don’t think anyone wants to see that occur when there is a perfectly viable alternative, the path that my family followed, of legally entering the country, legally making a living and contributing our fair share to pay for the services we take for granted. The issue to be debated isn’t whether we should force people to go home or throw them out or build walls or solve global poverty or bring about world peace. The issue to be argued over is why it isn’t easier and more attractive to simply follow the law than it is to risk life and limb by sneaking across the Sonoran desert. Simple logic involving the path of least resistance. Whatever is perceived to be the easiest way will be the way most people will take out of calculated self-interest. Make the legal route the attractive one, place incentives behind it, make it easier, quicker and safer than packing oneself into a shipping container, and people will follow that route. I can attest to the immense bureaucracy and cost and time involved in legally renewing my greencard a few years ago. It was unbelievable that I had to follow this labyrinth of procedure when I had been a productive member of American society for 10 years at that point. I can only imagine how daunting a challenge it would be to a non-Caucasian, non-English speaking person.
I couldn’t agree more. Let’s change the laws and make immigration easy. Problem solved.
it’ll be a shit show when the recession really starts hitting and the shortage of jobs makes the illegal immigration debate even more hysterical and illogical.
Not only don’t give them driver licenses, deport them!!!
Never in my life would I have ever expected to see such a thing as the excuses and pandering that goes on today in the interests of illegal aliens. I refuse to call them immigrants. They’re not immigrants. Our own government and leaders do it! They want to pump up the population further in the interest of commerce. The more the merrier they say because they get to sell them toilet paper and used cars. And they always have a pool of underclass fighters for the army as we one day take on China. You think these are made up examples of their thinking? Man, I’ve heard them say it. If you listen and read close you’ll hear them too.
I think it’s moronic to give them drivers’ licenses and if it happens they should be arrested and deported when they come to apply. It’s rediculous to think they apply saying “I am an illegal alien, give me a drivers license.” That’s the time for border patrol to grab them.
A phrase with the word “breeder” in it is used throughout the debate on this issue; the fact that the author has never seen that before shows how little she knows about the issue. As for putting the “our” in “our jobs” in quotes, importing massive amounts of cheap labor may have benefited the author, but it’s certainly had a negative impact on our own low-wage workers. And, restricting DLs and other non-emergency benefits and access to jobs will obviously reduce the numbers willing to come here illegally.
It’s interesting how most “anti-illegal immigration” folks never propose realistic solutions to the problem. “Just deport them all!” “Build a wall!” If our country was founded on anything, it’s the value of critical thinking - a value that is sorely underrated in our society today. Consider the logistical nightmare of deporting 12-20 million people. Consider the flaws in the wall plan, and all the ways that money could be better spent…to actually address root causes of immigration.
And why is there never any discussion of why illegal immigrants come here, never any discussion of illegal employers - as though all illegal immigrants were primarily motivated by the desire to commit crimes, and not by the search for economic opportunities? Not only is the debate characterized by a lack of empathy, but by a refusal to even attempt to understand another person’s decision-making process. But that’s counter-productive, and that hurts America. How can we solve illegal immigration without a deep understanding of why people come here? How can we solve illegal immigration with bandaids, and without some real attention to the structural causes of the problem?
We have to generate realistic solutions to the problems posed by illegal immigration, without recourse to hatred and extremism.
My wife is an immigrant, green card holder, not a US citizen.
>>Let’s change the laws and make immigration easy.
What a facile notion. Why have immigration laws at all? You might ask yourself why any country has restrictions on immigration in the first place. One reason is that countries with higher standards of living would be swamped with tens of millions of immigrants in a matter of months if they had no/few restrictions on immigration. Believe it or not, no country could sustain the economic and social costs involved with such a mass migration. Taking in millions of uneducated, impoverished, unskilled workers may have been a good idea in 1890, considering that at the time the US had a manufacturing/industrial economy with millions of acres of “open” land — few countries are in that position in 2008.
>>to actually address root causes of immigration.
Poverty in Mexico and Latin America? Not sure how the US is supposed to fix that. The same thing is happening between Russia and China. Millions of Chinese immigrants have illegally settled in Siberia looking for better economic opportunities. It isn’t rocket science: the poor and unemployed from an overcrowded, backwards country move to a neighboring country with a higher standard of living. It seems that people either respond to this phenomenon in a fit of xenophobic hysteria or by singing “We are the World” and handing out drivers licenses. Both responses are equally moronic.
Re drivers licenses, I’ve probably never heard anything that makes less sense. The state is supposed to issue legal documents to someone whom the state knows is in the country illegally? So it will be easier for illegal aliens to drive to their illegal jobs? If you are going to do that, then just change the laws and make all of it legal, since this is what you would be doing in effect anyway.
To the amnesty crowd: I’m willing to bet you’ve never had to walk the mean streets of LA, and have absolutely NO idea of the Balkinization of the US that is now occurring. No borders? No rules? Then no America, and prepare for the next US civil war, because it’s coming. And no, I’m WAY past listening to your arguments.
While we say they’re coming here to escape poverty they are busily scraping together $10,000 to pay a coyote to smuggle them in. My god, I couldn’t come up with $10,000 if my life depended on it.
And I don’t think deporting people would be a nightmare. In fact that’s exactly what should be done. Also a stop to babies born here of illegal aliens being an automatic citizen. It’s very easy to pop out a baby and then get on AFDC, foodstamps, medicare and WIC. I see working fathers all the time at stores with their wives and newborns spending charity on better things than I can afford. Don’t tell me the men aren’t working. I’ve seen their vehicles and I’ve seen them cash their checks. They are milking America for everything they can.
Its not 10,000 its $1,000. Its 10,000 pesos same as $1,000.
You have people running for Bush job right now who believe we should allow illegal to stay in this country and also be able to drive. We the citizens of this country have no say, our government will not listen to us and is just telling us what is going to be done. We do not have a free country or any rights to decide what is going to happen in our own country, this government is looking at illegal being your replacement.
People who brake our laws have more right than we do, but yet we must pay for them to be here. Our country housing market is down, but yet Mexico is building home left and right, illegal is sending most of thier money back to Mexico, that why they will have four to five family living in one home or apartment.
You may feel sorry for anyone, but you are allowing your country to be given away and taking your children future away which is your rights. If the 3.5 million illegal would leave Calif. it would leave them $10.2 billion to help support hospital, schools and over run prisons.
So to all of you who want to help illegal to get what ever they want from our country, when you have nothing left the person you will be able to blame will be your self. Good luck you will need it.
I’m not quite sure I understand the purpose of an illegal alien attaining a drivers license. If it is to deter them from getting fake licenses then how about making every state require a SSN in order to get a license. Run that number against the system to make sure its valid.
Further more why would an illegal alien want to come a state run facility and proclaim the are illegal? Once they have a license can’t we then just arrest them? Thats what would be going through my head if I was an illegal alien. Also, isn’t being here illegally a crime? Just like murder, theft, rape, and countless other things? If I kill someone can I get a murders license and be on my way? A theft license after stealing?
Some people just dont think.. If you deport them all like you say, it will be distroying families ESPECIALLY those of whom a spouse is american born and the other is illegal- its not like they are both from the same country and the american can adjust (its not as simple as it sounds). Most of them are working on their documentation but it takes a long time. If they are deported they probably will never see their spouse or children ever again. I don’t think that that is humane! Why should the children suffer.