Immigrants (in N.Y.) Face Loss of Licenses in ID Crackdown

[KamaAina]

You asked for it, you got it! Welcome to the brave new world...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/19/nyregion/19license.html?ex=1250568000&en=7431c70893050025&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

(I'm trying a new, supposedly registration-free type of link)

In New York, home to an estimated 500,000 of the nation's 10 million illegal immigrants, there has been little public debate. But behind the scenes, officials at the State Department of Motor Vehicles have begun a crackdown on license fraud that will take away the driver's licenses of as many as 200,000 immigrants who cannot prove that they are here legally.

There was scant reaction in January when the state started mailing out the first of a half-million letters threatening to suspend the licenses of drivers whose Social Security numbers did not match federal records. Fear and protest spread in places like Westchester County and Staten Island as the letters reached longtime immigrant drivers who depend on their cars to work as landscapers, construction workers or housecleaners....

The real problem, she said, is that since 9/11, officials have been trying to turn the driver's license into "a backdoor national identity card." But, she added, "driver's licenses are really about road safety."...

"It's like the D.M.V. has cut off my arms and legs," he said last week in the immaculate apartment that he, his wife and their 3-year-old son shared with three other immigrants from Ecuador. His earnings, which must support two children left with grandparents in Ecuador, as well as his family here, typically ran $20,000 to $25,000 a year, he said. But they have dwindled since his boss learned that he had lost his license.

Looks like the people have spoken... </sarcasm>