Immigration reform may be dead on arrival nationally, but states like Massachusetts are keeping it alive.
This week Massachusetts lawmakers will hold a public hearing on the proposed Safe Driving Bill. It would allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses.
Valdirene, who drives illegally now, signed a petition advocating for the bill. She needs a driver’s license to take her special needs daughter to the doctor. She said she’s worried everyday she’s behind the wheel, but she wrote, “Is it more important that my daughter get the medical treatment she needs, or that I don’t run the risk of being taken from her and deported for driving without a license?”
Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and 10 states including Vermont and Connecticut have already passed laws to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. Supporters of the proposed Massachusetts Safe Driving Bill say it’s a win-win. The state collects more fees for driver’s licenses and learner’s permits; insurance companies sell more policies. Most importantly, they say, everybody is safer with insured drivers on the road who know the traffic rules.
It was an undocumented driver who ran a stoplight hitting Carly McClain. The driver ran off after the accident because he didn’t have a license or insurance. McClain –who spent months dealing with the aftermath told Boston Globe contributing writer Marcela Garcia that maybe if he’d been able to go to the Registry to get a license, “he might not have hit me (…) and all of this might not have happened.”
One note to keep in mind— the driver’s licenses issued to undocumented immigrants would not be the same as the ones issued to Massachusetts residents. That does not placate opponents who see the safe driving bill as an accommodation for people who have no legal right to be here. What’s more, many see the driver’s license—the most iconic of American identification—as the first step down a slippery slope –first special legal ids, then citizenship.
More than 1,800 people have signed the petition pushing for the safe driving bill, evidence of growing support. This Wednesday’s public hearing is expected to draw passionate supporters and opponents.
President Obama called for comprehensive immigration reform again last week in his State of the Union address, and small compromise efforts in Congress are underway. But until a comprehensive plan is real, states are moving forward with practical, if piecemeal solutions like the Safe Driving Bill.
If many of the thousands of Massachusetts’ undocumented are on the road, better that they are out of the shadows.
