DMV Won’t Share Info With Feds
By Dan Murphy
Last month, New York State became the 15th state in the nation to provide undocumented immigrants with the right to obtain a driver’s license and legally drive a vehicle. Last June, the State Legislature passed – and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law – the Green Light Bill, which went into effect on Dec. 14.
Across the state, Departments of Motor Vehicles saw a spike in applications for learner’s permits by 133 percent in the days after Green Light went into effect. Undocumented immigrants, like all interested drivers, must first apply for a learner’s permit before they can take the test for a driver’s license.
Advocates who had favored the Green Light Bill claimed that DMV fees would increase as a result, and in just three days, the state DMV had issued more than 10,000 permits – up from a three-day average of 3,000. Advocates for the undocumented, like the Migrant Policy Institute, estimate that there are 1 million immigrants without legal citizenship status in New York.
In order to obtain a NYS learner’s permit, undocumented immigrants have to provide some type of documentation proving their identity, including a foreign driver’s license, passport or birth certificate, or other approved documents.
In Westchester, the vast majority of elected officials and immigrant advocate groups have supported the Green Light Bill. Carola Bracco, executive director of Neighbors Link, called it a win-win for the safety and benefit of all New Yorkers.
“Hardworking immigrants will be able to access a driver’s license to drive to work or take their children to school and doctor’s appointments without fear that a minor stop will lead to detention or even deportation,” said Bracco.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins helped bring the Green Light Bill to a vote last summer.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also supported the new law, saying: “When you’re in New York City traffic, you’re not thinking about the documentation status of the driver behind you. You care that they have a driver’s license.”
But some New Yorkers, and the Trump administration, oppose both the law and the fact that information on undocumented immigrant drivers will not be shared with federal law enforcement. Several county clerks in upstate New York filed lawsuits and legal challenges to the Green Light Bill, arguing that it violates federal immigration law. In some upstate counties, the local DMV is administered and operated by the local county clerk. In two cases, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuits, and permitted the Green Light Bill in New York to take effect.
New York Attorney General Letitia James defended the law in court.
“The Green Light law is legal and enforceable, and two separate federal courts have now already dismissed the meritless claims of two county clerks,” she said. “The law will help make our roads safer, our economy stronger, and will allow immigrants to come out of the shadows to sign up as legal drivers in our state.”
On the other side of the issue are those who claim that allowing undocumented residents to get driver’s licenses is a way to allow them to live without fear of deportation. And the federal Department of Homeland Security has publicly come out against the Green Light Bill.
“Besides giving driver’s licenses to hundreds of thousands of people who broke our laws and have come to our country illegally, the New York law also blocks DHS law enforcement officers who investigate crimes like child exploitation, human trafficking, terrorism, the targeting of gang members, sex offenders and drug smuggling from accessing important public records,” the DHS tweeted. “Accessing this information is vital to building out these criminal cases, identifying criminal suspects, and enhancing officer safety. This law will protect criminals at the expense of the safety and security of law-abiding New York residents.”
The Green Light Bill provides detailed and specific protections for undocumented permit and license applicants. The law also states that “the commissioner, and any agent or employee of the commissioner, shall not disclose or make accessible in any manner records of information that he or she maintains, to any agency that primarily enforces immigration law or to any employee or agent of such agency, unless the commissioner is presented with a lawful court order or judicial warrant.”
As New York State was adopting its Green Light Bill, New Jersey also approved a similar law, with undocumented residents of both states lining up outside of DMVs on both sides of the Hudson River.
A total of 15 states in the country have legalized driver’s licenses for their undocumented residents, with Washington, New Mexico and Utah being the among the first three states to do so, under republican-controlled state houses. The arguments in those states were that driver’s licenses for undocumented would lead to fewer hit-and-run cases, as well as increased revenue and trust between immigrants and the police.
Two Federal Agencies – the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which patrols the U.S.-Canadian border, and Immigration and Customers Enforcement – have asked to obtain the DMV data of suspected illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.
“New York’s Green Light Law is detrimental to CBP and ICE,” said Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement: “The information we receive from New York State is vital to our missions and blocking federal law enforcement officers from accessing it creates a significant threat to both officer and public safety. The data is vital to building out these criminal cases, identifying criminal suspects, and enhancing officer safety.”
Typically, DMV data is used by law enforcement to identify information about a car owner, including their address, driving history, and whether they are on a sex offender registry.
But state DMV spokeswoman Lisa Koumjian commented: “Under the Green Light law, no DMV data of any kind can be shared with an agency that primarily enforces immigration law, which means ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and Citizenship and Immigration Services do not have access to data unless the DMV is presented with a valid judge-signed court order, subpoena or judicial warrant.”
All DMV permit applicants are still required to pass both written exams and a road test to obtain their license.
