ID measure passed quietly, while sanctuary cities bill died noisily

[sonias]

Worse than voter ID this is the classic bait and switch. While everyone was fighting the driving while brown sanctuary cities bill, another bill to allow profiling at the DPS offices just became law. :puke:

AAS 6/29/11
ID measure passed quietly, while sanctuary cities bill died noisily

An immigration-related provision tucked into a must-pass budget bill could have more of an effect on Texans than the high-profile sanctuary cities legislation that the Legislature did not pass.

(snip)
A provision in the approved Senate Bill 1, the special session's must-pass school finance bill, will require people to prove U.S. citizenship or legal residence before they can renew or get a Texas driver's license.

Though sanctuary cities legislation would have directly affected only people who have contact with police, the driver's license provision will touch most Texas adults.

Proponents of the driver's license policy say it will help combat terrorists and criminal activity by illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, critics say the provision would force undocumented immigrants who have been in the U.S. for decades to either drive without licenses or get deported to a country they might not know at all.

It also will be burdensome to legal immigrants and U.S. citizens, said Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin .

And it is likely to lead to ethnic and racial profiling as Department of Public Safety employees might be more inclined to ask for a birth certificate from Latino Americans and citizens with accents, he said.

Let the lawsuits begin!

:mad::mad::mad:

[AllenVanAllen]

1. Seeing the president's papers wasn't enough.

Now they want to see all our papers. This is a bunch of bullshit.

[sonias]

2. It will get bad at DPS

They already have long lines and in some counties they don't even have DPS offices. Anyone that travels to a DPS office a long way off is going to get really, really pissed.

Texas Rs are the biggest assholes in the world. I'd like to shove my papers down their throats. :grr:

[w8liftinglady]

3. exactly...and places like henderson County are f%cked.

NO public trans....and one dps for a multicounty area........and most resident are minimum wage/no vehicle/uninsured-crap insured. I can only imagine what the DPS route will be for those poor folks.

[AllenVanAllen]

4. I guess we can say goodbye to online renewal.

I wonder how much this unconstitutional law will end up costing Texas if it's enacted?

[sonias]

7. Probably

Unless there is some methodology worked out to submit your papers via the mail. I'm thinking you may have to have them certified.

:wtf: these damn idiots are making life so much worse - and more expensive for everyone. :grr:

[onestepforward]

5. "By putting it into law, the state potentially undermines an ongoing lawsuit

that argues DPS doesn’t have authority to check legal status."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7637818.html#ixzz1R4sCYJ5d

-snip-

Luis Figueroa, the legislative affairs attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is involved in a lawsuit challenging the DPS rules, said the department’s policy kept some people who should have received licenses, such as citizens who were delivered by a midwife or visitors who have legal status the DPS isn’t familiar with, from getting them and he’s not sure the new law will change that.

“We’ve gotten hundreds of complaints of people getting the wrong licenses, people having to keep coming back and bringing more documents and people getting denied licenses,” Figueroa said.

-snip-

[sonias]

6. Yea MALDEF!

Once again they ride in to protect our rights!

MALDEF rocks! :yourock: :loveya: MALDEF!!!

[sonias]

8. Proof of Legal Status Now Required for State IDs

Texas Tribune 7/7/11

Proof of Legal Status Now Required for State IDs

Many Democrats are crowing that the 82nd Legislature will go down as one in which, despite the "emergency" push for sanctuary cities legislation, nothing emerged from the Capitol that waill substantially alter the way immigration laws are enforced. Yet Republicans did manage to eke out one small victory during the special session, successfully attaching language to Senate Bill 1, the must-pass fiscal matters bill, that would require people applying for driver's licenses or other state-issued identification cards to prove they're in the country legally.

Such a policy, as opposed to a law on the books, had been in effect since 2008, when the Texas Department of Public Safety began requiring applicants for driver’s licenses and ID cards to produce government-issued documents that affirmed their legal status. Before 2008, according to DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange, such proof was not required to obtain a license or ID.

Immigrants' rights groups were irate over the policy change, which they alleged could have the effect of denying legal residents access to those forms of ID, with DPS clerks acting as de facto immigration agents. In 2009, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund sued DPS, arguing that the agency overstepped its authority by implementing the policy even though the Legislature rejected similar legislation in the 2007 session.

Last month, however, House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, took matters into his own hands. Pitts cribbed language requiring applicants for driver's licenses and ID cards to prove their legal residency from Senate Bill 9, an omnibus homeland security bill filed by state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, and added it as an amendment to SB 1. The amendment also allows the DPS to determine expiration dates for those IDs based on when an immigration document was issued. For a non-citizen or non-permanent legal resident, DPS can issue a document that “expires on the earlier of a date specified by DPS or the expiration date of the applicant's authorized stay in the United States.” If the immigration document does not have an expiration date, DPS can issue an ID or license that expires every year.

:grr: