N.M. House Passes Driver’s License Ban for Illegal Aliens

N.M. House Passes Driver’s License Ban for Illegal Aliens

Thursday, February 9, 2012, 

In this Jan. 24, 2012 photo, immigrant advocates use an image of New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez on a mock state driver's license during a rally in Santa Fe to protest her proposal to repeal a state law that allows illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses. An Associated Press investigation has found that found that a handful of addresses are being used over and over again by immigrants to get licenses in a pattern that suggests potential fraud.

Revisiting an issue important to Gov. Susanna Martinez, the New Mexico House of Representatives passed legislation to repeal a state law that allows illegal aliens to get New Mexico driver's licenses. Similar legislation passed the House last year but was blocked in the Senate.

The House passed HB 103 (sponsored by Rep. Andy Nuñez) by a 45-25 margin. This represents a gain of Democratic votes over 2011. In all, 34 Republicans, 11 Democrats and independent Nuñez voted for the bill.

Opponents failed in an attempt to pass an alternative bill that would have given illegal aliens licenses but imposed additional restrictions such as a fingerprinting requirement.

Polls show that 70 percent of New Mexicans support a ban. New Mexico and Washington are the only states that grant driver's licenses to illegal aliens, although Utah issues a special driving card.

For more information, read this Sante Fe New Mexican

The state House of Representatives on Wednesday once again voted to pass a bill that would repeal the state law that allows undocumented immigrants to get New Mexico driver's licenses.

The bill, strongly supported by Republican Gov. Susana Martinez but labeled a wedge issue by some Democratic opponents, now goes to the Senate.

The Senate last year heavily amended a similar House bill, effectively killing it, and many expect that to happen again.

Following a nearly four-hour debate, the House voted 45-25 to pass House Bill 103, sponsored by Rep. Andy Nuñez, I-Hatch.

Wednesday's vote represented a larger margin of support for repeal in the House than last year. Three Democrats who voted against last year's bill -- Rep. Nick Salazar of Española, Henry "Kiki" Saavedra of Albuquerque and George Dodge of Santa Rosa -- voted for HB 103.

A total of 11 Democrats joined all 34 House Republicans and independent Nuñez in backing the bill.

Santa Fe's delegation -- House Speaker Ben Luján, Luciano "Lucky" Varela, Jim Trujillo and Brian Egolf -- all voted against the bill. All four are Democrats.

Elsa Lopez, an activist with Somos un Pueblo Unido, a local immigrant-rights organization, said her group wasn't surprised by the vote. Though she hopes the Senate will once again stop the proposal, she said people in the immigrant community fear that the bill is only the first one to be aimed at immigrants. "It starts with driver's licenses," she said, noting that years before Arizona passed a controversial law on checking a person's immigration status, the state had stopped issuing driver's licenses to immigrants.

The Arizona law requires police officers to check the immigration status of individuals whom they've stopped and for whom they have "reasonable suspicion" of being in the United States illegally.

Supporters of the House bill rejected the argument. "This is not about immigration, it's only about public safety," the governor's chief of staff, Keith Gardner, told reporters shortly after the vote. He said the administration won't push a law like Arizona's. "There's no desire to do immigration law," he said. "The governor has said in public that we're not in the business of doing immigration law."

Nuñez said the same thing. "The Arizona law is too harsh," he said.

Opponents of the bill have said for more than a year that Martinez is pushing the issue for political reasons, specifically to use against Democratic lawmakers who vote against it.

"This is about fear, hate and politics," Rep. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, said during Wednesday's floor debate. He said the bill is meant to capitalize on anti-immigrant sentiment, which he said has been on the rise since the recession began in 2008.

The governor and her allies deny this.

But Martinez, since she began her campaign for governor, has been upfront in citing public opinion polls that show support for repealing the license provision. And she has said several times that opponents will have to face their constituents if they vote against the bill.

Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, voted for Nuñez's bill, as he did last year. "I am going to vote the will of my district," Park said in a text message to a reporter during the debate. Park is not seeking re-election but is running for a Public Regulation Commission seat.

Despite the emotional nature of the issue, some opponents of the bill noted that Wednesday's debate was far less heated than last year's.

During the debate, Democrats unsuccessfully tried to pass a substitute bill, which is similar to the legislation the Senate passed last year. It would have allowed an undocumented immigrant to get a driver's license but would have imposed several restrictions, including a requirement that applicants be fingerprinted.

Egolf, noting that the Senate isn't likely to pass Nuñez's bill, said the only real hope for dealing with fraud and other problems related to issuing licenses to undocumented applicants would be passage of the substitute version.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted along party lines on a bill similar to the House substitute. (Democrats supported it, Republicans were opposed.) However, Wednesday's vote shows it's highly unlikely that Senate Bill 235, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, would pass the House. And Martinez has vowed to veto such a measure.

Martinez's campaign committee last year spent more than $5,000 on radio ads urging people to call their legislators and tell them to support the driver's license bill. The state Republican Party paid for robo-calls for the same purpose.

This year, there was no such a campaign, though Martinez's political-action committee paid for full-color mailers before the session that mentioned the driver's license issue, among several others.

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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Republican Gov. Susana Martinez suffered a temporary political setback Thursday in a bid to stop New Mexico from granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

A legislative committee shelved her proposal and approved a Democrat-backed alternative that continues to allow licenses for illegal immigrants but with new restrictions.

The politically-charged fight is far from over, however. The legislation heads to another panel for consideration and Martinez stands a strong chance of success if the issue reaches the full 70-member House for a vote. A measure to overturn New Mexico's license policy for immigrants passed the House last year with the support of eight Democrats and one independent.

"I've got all the votes I need in the House," said Rep. Andy Nunez, a Hatch independent sponsoring the governor's proposal.

Nunez conceded it's very uncertain whether the measure can clear the Democrat-controlled Senate, which solidly rejected it last year.

The House Labor and Human Resources Committee voted 5-4 on a party-line split for what Democrats described as a compromise proposal. Republicans opposed it.

The measure allows illegal immigrants to continue getting licenses but for only two years before needing renewal. Currently, licenses can last four or eight years. The measure increases penalties for license fraud and will cancel licenses previously issued to foreign nationals if they renew them within two years _ allowing the state to determine whether people remain New Mexico residents.

House Majority Leader Ken Martinez, a Grants Democrat, said the state's license policy allows illegal immigrants to "come up from the shadows" so they can drive to work and take their children to school and other places without fear of arrest for not having a license. The committee-approved restrictions will "really hit the bad guys hard," he said.

State law enforcement and Martinez administration officials told the committee that New Mexico's licensing law posed a security risk to the state and rest of the country.

"This has never been an immigration issue. It's not about immigration. It's simply about public safety and security," said Keith Gardner, the governor's chief of staff.

But church leaders and immigrant rights advocates disagreed, saying a driver's license is critical for immigrants living and working in New Mexico, many with U.S.-born children. The push to repeal New Mexico's law is stirring an anti-immigrant sentiment, they said.

"I think it is about immigration ... it is about divisiveness," said Santa Fe Mayor David Coss. "We should stop calling people in our community illegal aliens."

The governor's proposal would prohibit the state from granting licenses to illegal immigrants. However, it would continue to allow licenses for foreign nationals in the country legally, such as students with a visa.

New Mexico and Washington are the only states that allow illegal immigrants to obtain the same driver's license as a U.S. citizen. Utah grants immigrants a driving permit that can't be used for identification, unlike a driver's license that helps people open bank accounts and make financial transactions or board a commercial airliner.

Martinez contends that New Mexico's license system is subject to widespread fraud. The state has brought charges against several fraud rings, in which brokers were paid to supplement fraudulent documents for foreign nationals from Poland, China, Mexico and other countries.

During the committee hearing, several legislators noted that a review of license data by The Associated Press found that dozens of addresses _ including some for businesses such as a smoke shop _ have been used over and over again by immigrants to get a driver's license. The pattern suggests people are abusing the state's licensing system.

However, supporters of the current policy said the state doesn't need to repeal its law to deal with potential fraud.

"It is important the state is enforcing the law. When the law is enforced, the law works," said Allen Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The AP identified 170 addresses in New Mexico at which 10 or more licenses have been issued to different foreign nationals from 2003 through August 2011. Those account for 2,662 licenses _ representing nearly 3 percent of the total issued to foreign nationals during that period. The AP limited its analysis to addresses with a high number of licenses to try to get an indication of the extent of possible fraud. Large families or frequent tenant turnover at rental property are among the legitimate reasons why there are addresses with fewer than 10 licenses over a period of time.

New Mexico changed its law in 2003 to grant driver's licenses to anyone without a Social Security number, which are unavailable to people living illegally in the country. More than 90,000 licenses have been issued to immigrants, and state officials speculate that most of those have gone to illegal immigrants. However, it's impossible to know for certain because license applicants aren't asked about their immigration status.