California newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee, reported that the California Department of Motor Vehicles announced on April 4 that more than one million “undocumented immigrants” — illegal aliens — have received driver’s licenses. Those who are in this country illegally have been allowed to receive driver’s licenses since 2015, when Assembly Bill 60, which required California DMV offices to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens as long as they can prove their identity and residence within the state, took effect.
AB 60 was authored by former Assemblyman Luis Alejo. It was signed into law in October 2013 by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown. There are an estimated 2.5 million illegal aliens in California, so the latest figures indicate that 40 percent of these illegals now have driver’s licenses.
Alejo, in a statement quoted by the Times, praised the news that the number of licenses issued to illegals had passed the one-million mark. “It’s been successful for over a million families who can now drive to work, take their kids to school in the morning or go see the doctor without fear that their car is going to be impounded,” said Alejo, who is now a Monterey County supervisor. “Now their lives are better, and our roads and highways are safer for everyone.”
Alejo’s statement presumes that these illegal aliens have been breaking the law all along by driving without licenses, since if they had not been driving they would not have feared that their cars might be impounded. In fact, they would not even have cars.
However, since, illegal aliens, by entering our country illegally, are breaking the law simply by being in this country, it should not surprise anyone that they are breaking multiple other laws.
The law granting illegals licenses was an expensive one to implement and was expected to cost the state $141 million over a period of three years, according to the Orange County Register. During the year before it went into effect, the DMV hired 1,000 temporary employees and opened four additional processing centers to process the expected number of new applicants. It also extended its offices’ hours of operation to include Saturdays.
We reported in our article in August 2015 that a then-current report released by the non-profit Pew Charitable Trust indicated that as of that year, 10 states and the District of Columbia had issued driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Nearly 37 percent of illegals live in a jurisdiction where they may now obtain a license. The states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.
The Pew report noted that since the documents, such as U.S. birth certificates or U.S. passports, typically accepted as proof of age and identity are not available to illegal aliens, states issuing licenses to illegals accept alternate forms of identification. Consular identification cards, issued to foreign nationals by the embassy or consulate of their country of origin, are a common substitute and are accepted by all 11 jurisdictions issuing licenses to illegal aliens.
Giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens can result in other negative consequence aside from reinforcing their decision to continue breaking our immigration laws. Driver’s licenses can actually make it easier for the aliens to register to vote, something they are not legally allowed to do, but may do anyway.
On April 1, a new law will go into effect in California that will automatically register people to vote through the Department of Motor Vehicles, including aliens who are in the country illegally.
Back on October 10, 2015, California Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill 1461, the New Motor Voter Act, which automatically registers people to vote when they apply for a new driver’s license or new state ID through the DMV. Because this process lacks the safeguards present in traditional voter registration procedures, it could result in illegal aliens voting.
The day after the bill was signed, a reporter for the Washington Times noted that the under the new law, all Californians would automatically be registered to vote when they obtained or renewed their driver’s licenses at the DMV, instead of being required to fill out a separate form.
The Times report cited the anti-vote fraud groups True the Vote and the Election Integrity Project of California, which had urged Brown to veto the bill, saying it would lead to “‘state sanctioned’ voter fraud” and pointing out that the legislation exempts from penalties ineligible voters who wind up being registered.
“This bill is terrible. It makes an already bad situation much, much worse,” True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht said in a statement.
During a discussion about California’s New Motor Voter Act on the October 13, 2015 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, Judge Andrew Napolitano predicted, “The state is going to provide shelter for illegals to vote.”
Photo: Clipart.com
Related articles:
California Grants Driver’s Licenses to 605,000 Illegal Aliens
Ten States and D.C. Issue Driver’s Licenses to Illegal Aliens
Drivers Licenses for Illegals Prove Deadly
Illegal Aliens Fraudulently Cast Ballots in New Mexico
Giving Driver’s Licenses to Illegal Aliens Makes Illegal Voting a Real Possibility
New California Law Will Automatically Register Illegal Aliens to Vote
