The Sparks Leading up to the Fire

The immigration debate has peaked in the past several months due to Governor Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to reform drivers’ license policies in New York. New York, a city where over one-third of the people are immigrants or children of immigrants, the city where the twin towers were struck on that tragic day in 2001, and the city that seems to a symbol of America for people across the world. Due to a rapidly changing political climate, many Americans have opinions over the issue of illegal immigration, which was pulled to the forefront because of changing DMV policies. Governor George Pataki, the 57th governor of the State of New York and the predecessor to Governor Spitzer, served from 1995 to 2006. His strict policies were the sparks leading up to the current issue under fire.

Until 2001, applicants who met all conditions for obtaining a drivers’ license except a valid social security number could get a license by submitting a letter from the Social Security Administration rejecting the application for a social security card on the basis that the applicant was ineligible to receive the document. This letter was known as the “L676” letter and it was acceptable to the DMV because it meant that the applicant was authorized to be in the United States, though not able to work legally.

On September 6, 2001, under policies implemented by Governor George Pataki, the Division of Motor Vehicles began requiring applicants without social security numbers to submit to the DMV not only an L676 letter, but also their underlying Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents. In 2002, the DMV adopted a number of policies that seriously impacted immigrants. One of those was the adoption of a one-year/six month requirement for visa status. This meant that an applicant had to provide DHS documentation establishing legal presence in the US and that he or she has a visa status issued for at least a year, with at least six months remaining at time of application. The DMV also ceased to accept foreign birth certificates to establish identity and/or age. Hence, many immigrants were not able to renew their licenses. Additionally, the DMV began checking its database against the database of the Social Security Administration to verify social security numbers. When they were unable to verify approximately 600,000 persons who had New York State drivers’ licenses, they began to send letters to these people informing them to correct their information with the DMV within fifteen days or face possible suspension. Others who fell into this category, whose licenses expired altogether, were not able to renew them. Fear and protest spread in places like Westchester County and Staten Island as the longtime immigrant drivers who depended on their cars to work as landscapers, construction workers or housecleaners, received this letters. Most people responded to the letters and provided their subsequent numbers, but about 252,000 people are still at large with the information and would have been subject to license revocation under the practice. There was an immigrant outcry against these policies, which they found to be extreme and arbitrary. There was further unrest as immigrant advocates learned of cases where a person responded in person to motor vehicle offices and had their license confiscated on the spot for a missing social security number. In the first months of the implementation of these policies, about 7,000 licenses were seized. Protests began, as immigrants felt cornered, helpless, and betrayed.

This stigmatized immigrant community came together and the year 2004 saw a number of protests against the threatened suspension of drivers’ licenses. In August of 2004, Maria Cubas, represented by attorneys from the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), filed a lawsuit challenging the DMV policy against Governor Pataki. In the initial order of the case, Judge Karen S. Smith made remarks �recognizing that the DMV should not be enforcing immigration laws and that its policies are harming immigrant New Yorkers.’ The case was won in 2005 by PRLDEF. Judge Karen Smith concluded that the DMV “may not use immigration status” to deny licenses. The Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court for the First Department write, “The limitations that plaintiffs would impose on the ability to identify an undocumented alien who is working to promote his family’s financial security would also hinder the detection of an undocumented alien who is working to advance the destructive ends of a terrorist organization.” It is not that the court is unsympathetic to the predicaments of law-abiding undocumented foreign nationals, but rather that Plaintiffs’ remedy lies with Congress, which has the power to set immigration policy. The Puerto Rican Legal and Defense and Education Fund surmised that this victory