NEW YORK (By Stiletto) October 29th, 2007 — Last month, New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced that the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) would reverse a post-9/11 policy by the Pataki administration to deny a driver’s license to anyone who could not prove legal status – immediately prompting at least a dozen county clerks who operate DMV offices as agents of the state to announce they would flout the new rules.
To combat identity fraud, all but eight states – HI, ME, MD, MI, NM, OR, UT and WA –require drivers to prove legal status to obtain driver’s licenses.
Spitzer did an about-face only after the state’s top Dem leaders warned that the controversial move would imperil the prospects of state Senate candidates, leading to "unprecedented losses" in November – and may even cost Hillary the state in the presidential race. And their fears are not unfounded: Upset New Yorkers rallied at the Capitol in Albany, calling for the governor’s impeachment or recall.
Last week, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (IL), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus took a break from enshrining Clinton Administration policies with his all-out effort to kill the Armenian Genocide Resolution to tell The Washington Post:
"This issue, illegal immigration, has real implications for the country. It captures all the American people’s anger and frustration not only with immigration, but with the economy. It’s self-evident. This is a big problem."
"For the American people, and therefore all of us, it’s emerged as the third rail of American politics. And anyone who doesn’t realize that isn’t with the American people."
Spitzer finally listened to reason or panic and abandoned his insistence that drivers’ licenses for illegals be identical to standard licenses issued by the DMV and has now endorsed a different design, along with markings that prevent their use as ID when entering a federal building or boarding a plane. The state has also agreed to participate in the federal Real ID program, which requires drivers’ license applicants to prove legal residency and identity – a valid passport or visa and a verifiable Social Security number, for instance.
Those who earn their livings undermining every law meant to secure our borders, predictably condemned Spitzer, reports The Times:
The separate licenses could serve as an invitation for law enforcement to arrest anyone carrying one on immigration charges, said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. She added that the new proposal could send illegal immigrants further into the shadows, compelling them to drive with forged or no licenses and without insurance.
As Spitzer and other politicians are dealing with the reality of an electorate enraged over illegal immigration, liberals prefer the fantasy that the real ill in "illegal" is racism, not lawlessness. This from Lawrence Downes, who has been a member of The Times’ editorial board since 2004: I am a human pileup of illegality. I am an illegal driver and an illegal parker and even an illegal walker, having at various times stretched or broken various laws and regulations that govern those parts of life. The offenses were trivial, and I feel sure I could endure the punishments — penalties and fines — and get on with my life. Nobody would deny me the chance to rehabilitate myself. Look at Martha Stewart, illegal stock trader, and George Steinbrenner, illegal campaign donor, to name two illegals whose crimes exceeded mine.
Good thing I am not an illegal immigrant. There is no way out of that trap. It’s the crime you can’t make amends for. Nothing short of deportation will free you from it, such is the mood of the country today. And that is a problem.
America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.
“Illegal” is accurate insofar as it describes a person’s immigration status. About 60 percent of the people it applies to entered the country unlawfully. The rest are those who entered legally but did not leave when they were supposed to. The statutory penalties associated with their misdeeds are not insignificant, but neither are they criminal. You get caught, you get sent home.
Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.
Many people object to the alternate word “undocumented” as a politically correct euphemism, and they have a point. Someone who sneaked over the border and faked a Social Security number has little right to say: “Oops, I’m undocumented. I’m sure I have my papers here somewhere.”
But at least “undocumented” — and an even better word, “unauthorized” — contain the possibility of reparation and atonement, and allow for a sensible reaction proportional to the offense. The paralysis in Congress and the country over fixing our immigration laws stems from our inability to get our heads around the wrenching change involved in making an illegal person legal. Think of doing that with a crime, like cocaine dealing or arson. Unthinkable!
So people who want to enact sensible immigration policies to help everybody — to make the roads safer, as Gov. Eliot Spitzer would with his driver’s license plan, or to allow immigrants’ children to go to college or serve in the military — face the inevitable incredulity and outrage. How dare you! They’re illegal.
Meanwhile, out on the edges of the debate — edges that are coming closer to the mainstream every day — bigots pour all their loathing of Spanish-speaking people into the word. Rant about “illegals” — call them congenital criminals, lepers, thieves, unclean — and people will nod and applaud. They will send money to your Web site and heed your calls to deluge lawmakers with phone calls and faxes. Your TV ratings will go way up.
This is not only ugly, it is counterproductive, paralyzing any effort toward immigration reform. Comprehensive legislation in Congress and sensible policies at the state and local level have all been stymied and will be forever, as long as anything positive can be branded as “amnesty for illegals.”
We are stuck with a bogus, deceptive strategy — a 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border to stop a fraction of border crossers who are only 60 percent of the problem anyway, and scattershot raids to capture a few thousand members of a group of 12 million.
None of those enforcement policies have a trace of honesty or realism. At least they don’t reward illegals, and that, for now, is all this country wants.
Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far.
Illegal modifies the whole of the person’s actions, as one broken law begets another and another and another.
NY has between 500,000 and 1 million undocumented immigrants, many of whom are driving without a license and car insurance or with fake driver’s licenses, reports Newsday. So up to one million people are in NY illegally, unknowable numbers of whom are driving illegally with phony drivers’ licenses, are driving illegally without car insurance, and are illegally using forged Social Security cards and stolen identities to get jobs.
Back in September, Spitzer told The New York Times, "The D.M.V. is not the I.N.S.," in justifying the decision to accept a current foreign passport as proof of identity without evidence of legal immigration, such as a valid visa. Critics countered that bestowing the exact same drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens as to legal residents of the state could facilitate voter fraud and terrorism. Said Department of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, "I don’t endorse giving licenses to people who are not here legally, but federal law does allow states to make that choice."
However, realpolitik does not.
