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Spitzer Driver's License Plan Raises Security Concerns
by
findingDulcinea Staff
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s intention to permit illegal immigrants to qualify for driver’s licenses faces objections that it will endanger national security and increase voter fraud.
30-Second Summary
On Sept. 21, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced his intention to lift the rule requiring driver’s license applicants in his state to possess a valid social security number (SSN).
Opponents of the bill have argued that removing the SSN requirement will increase instances of voter fraud. But their most incendiary accusation is that the move will compromise national security.
These concerns are rooted in the fact that Spitzer’s plan will allow many of New York’s illegal immigrants to acquire a document that is frequently used to board domestic flights, enter federal buildings and obtain firearms.
A number of commentators have focused the debate on whether 9/11 might have been prevented had stricter driver’s license requirements been enforced in 2001.
On CNN, Brooklyn senators Martin Golden (Republican) and Kevin Parker (Democrat) argued just that point. Parker claimed that “nobody in 9/11 was undocumented”; a claim contested by Golden.
However, the senators may have missed the crux of the issue in concentrating on whether the terrorists entered the country legally.
Anti-immigration organizations NumbersUSA and FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) have each produced a report on licenses and the 9/11 terrorists. Both documents conclude that if the hijackers had been unable to use driver’s licenses, the authorities might have picked up on certain “terrorist indicators” in their passports.
In contrast, Spitzer’s office and the commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), David Swarts, contend in their press release that “bringing more New Yorkers into the system will ensure a greater number of people have a license record that, if necessary, can be used to enhance law enforcement efforts.”
Opponents of the bill have argued that removing the SSN requirement will increase instances of voter fraud. But their most incendiary accusation is that the move will compromise national security.
These concerns are rooted in the fact that Spitzer’s plan will allow many of New York’s illegal immigrants to acquire a document that is frequently used to board domestic flights, enter federal buildings and obtain firearms.
A number of commentators have focused the debate on whether 9/11 might have been prevented had stricter driver’s license requirements been enforced in 2001.
On CNN, Brooklyn senators Martin Golden (Republican) and Kevin Parker (Democrat) argued just that point. Parker claimed that “nobody in 9/11 was undocumented”; a claim contested by Golden.
However, the senators may have missed the crux of the issue in concentrating on whether the terrorists entered the country legally.
Anti-immigration organizations NumbersUSA and FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) have each produced a report on licenses and the 9/11 terrorists. Both documents conclude that if the hijackers had been unable to use driver’s licenses, the authorities might have picked up on certain “terrorist indicators” in their passports.
In contrast, Spitzer’s office and the commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), David Swarts, contend in their press release that “bringing more New Yorkers into the system will ensure a greater number of people have a license record that, if necessary, can be used to enhance law enforcement efforts.”
Headline Links: Critics round on Spitzer
A driver’s license is often the only form of ID requested of applicants when they wish to vote in U.S. elections. As a result, accusations have arisen that by allowing applicants to acquire a license without having a social security number, Spitzer may increase the instances of voter fraud. Sen. Martin Golden (R-N.Y.) told The New York Post, “It’s a Democratic issue to get more people to the polls and vote for their candidates.”
Source: The New York Post
Tennessee and North Carolina adopted similar schemes to the one proposed by Spitzer, but dropped them after a number of complications arose. The New York Post lists those problems, and principal among them are the instances of out-of-state applicants crossing borders and using false addresses to obtain a driver’s license.
Source: The New York Post
The DMV issued a staff memo on Oct. 19 advising employees that the voter registration forms, which are issued to anyone who can produce a valid driver’s license, “must be transmitted in a timely manner to the appropriate board of election which will determine the client’s eligibility to vote. Neither the DMV nor its county clerk agents have any statutory discretion to withhold a motor voter form.” The memo proved controversial because it appeared to countermand one issued on Oct. 2 that stated that motor voter registration would only be permitted “if there is an SSN [Social Security Number] entered or if there is a previous verified SSN.”
Source: Newsday
On Oct. 8, Newsday reported that “a majority of the state County Clerks Association opposed the plan and several Republican clerks who have a role in carrying it out threatened to ignore it.” According to Newsday, some commentators have suggested that Spitzer is using a controversial measure to distract attention from accusations his aides used the state police to track the movements of Republican leader Joseph Bruno.
Source: Newsday
Opinion & Analysis: CNN coverage and immigrant rights
Denis Hughes, the leader of the union movement AFL-CIO, supports the bill, arguing that the change will help the state track the estimated one million illegal aliens in New York, to find out whether they are working and under what conditions. Opponents say that they worry about the security risks, as the driver’s license is the primary form of identification used by people boarding a domestic flight, entering a federal building, or buying a firearm.
Source: Poststar
The director of the New York Immigration Coalition writes that the ’03 move of previous New York State Governor George Pataki to confiscate illegal immigrants’ licenses benefited no one. Chung-Wha Hong argues that Pataki “imposed unnecessary hardship on affected families … it has encouraged unlicensed and uninsured driving [and it] has hindered law enforcement as it led immigrants without valid state ID to go further underground.”
Source: The New York Daily News
Kitty Pilgrim on CNN hosted a debate between Brooklyn senators Martin Golden and Kevin Parker, respectively an anti-Spitzer-legislation Republican and pro-legislation Democrat. The debate concludes with an argument over whether an act signed by the president, the REAL ID Act, which will require an SSN for all license applicants in every state from 2013, would have prevented the 9/11 terrorists. Golden holds that it would; Parker objects that “nobody in 9/11 was undocumented.”
Source: CNN on YouTube
Lou Dobbs on CNN
Lou Dobbs begins his coverage of the Spitzer plan by saying that the move “breaks a number of state and federal laws.” One of these alleged contraventions is of section 1324 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which is designed to punish any person who “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States.” The federal law referred to is the one being rolled back by Spitzer and originally put in place by his predecessor George Pataki. The second state law mentioned in the report is the Real ID Act of 2005, which requires that any applicant have a valid social security number before qualifying for a license (see Reference Material).
Source: Lou Dobbs on CNN
According to the Associated Press, Maine, Idaho and Arkansas have enacted laws of noncompliance with the Real ID Act. The AP state that “Washington’s legislature has also passed a similar bill and Maine and Hawaii have passed resolutions opposing the Real ID Act.”
Source: The Associated Press
On Lou Dobbs CNN report, Jim Staudenraus of the Coalition for Secure Driver’s License states that Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 terrorists, “was unable to get a New York State driver’s license.” Atta was certainly turned down in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, but was able to get one elsewhere in Florida. The St. Petersburg Times maintains that the ability of the terrorists to acquire a license “might have helped them rent cars or board planes without arousing suspicion.”
Source: The St. Petersburg Times
Nicholas Confessore of The New York Times argues that Lou Dobbs’s “relentless mockery” of the license issue “has thrust the driver’s license policy onto the national stage.” Confessore contests claims made on Dobbs’s show that illegal immigrants will need only a foreign passport to obtain a license and that “Mr. Spitzer’s policy was instituted through executive order.”
Source: The New York Times
TimesWatch.org is a blog dedicated, according to its tag line, to “documenting and exposing the liberal political agenda of The New York Times.” The site took issue with the paper’s rebuttal of CNN anchorman Lou Dobbs’s piece on Spitzer’s driver’s license plan (see above link). The first criticism concerns the record of the Times’s reporter Confessore, who, writes TimesWatch.org, has been unreliable in the past in profiling a Hurricane Katrina victim. The site also questions the justice of saying that Dobbs’s “relentless mockery of Spitzer’s decision has thrust the driver’s license policy onto the national stage.” TimesWatch.org writes that a poll showed that 72 percent of respondents opposed Spitzer’s plan, the implied inference being that Dobbs is only drawing attention to a policy that most of his audience would readily disagree with.
Source: TimesWatch.org
Reference Material: NumbersUSA, FAIR and related legislation
NumbersUSA bills itself as a bipartisan, independently funded public policy organization working for the reduction of immigration to pre-1967 levels. “The 9/11 Terrorists and the REAL ID Act” is a short document researched, according to NumbersUSA, using “The 9/11 Commission Report.” NumbersUSA concludes that had the REAL ID Act been in place prior to 9/11, two of the terrorists would have been unable to obtain a valid license or ID card with which to board the airplane they hijacked. The reason for that is that these two men had outstayed their visas.
Source: NumbersUSA
FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) describes itself as a bipartisan “national, nonprofit, public interest” organization working to “improve border security, to stop illegal immigration, and to promote immigration levels consistent with the national interest—more traditional raters of about 300,000 a year.” FAIR have produced a report on “Driver’s License Security,” which argues that the 9/11 terrorists were able to obtain licenses as “a result of laxity.” It quotes the “9/11 Commission Report”: “Sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists.”
Source: FAIR
The governor’s Sept. 21, 2007, press release announcing the policy change identified three reasons for making driver’s licenses accessible to illegal immigrants: increased road safety; lower insurance premiums; and better national security. According to the statement, eight states currently do not require drivers to prove legal resident status in order for them to acquire a license.
Source: New York State Government
A summary of the Real ID Act of 2005 is available online from the National Conference of State Legislatures. It is stated therein that “Title II of REAL ID … repeals the provisions of a December 2004 law that established a cooperative state-federal process to create federal standards for driver’s licenses and instead directly imposes prescriptive federal driver’s license standards.”
Source: The National Conference of State Legislatures
A SurveyUSA poll asked New York State residents whether illegal immigrants should “be allowed to obtain a NY driver’s license if they have a valid foreign passport.” The majority, 56 percent, said no; whereas 38 percent responded with a yes.
Source: SurveyUSA
According to the U.S. government’s Social Security Online Web site, social security numbers are no longer issued to citizens without work authorization solely for the purposes of getting a driver’s license.
Source: Social Security Online
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