The precise documentation that can be used for applications will be determined at a later date.īrenda S. The licenses would not be valid as identification for air travel, and would be distinct from the Real ID licenses that beginning next year will be required at airport security checkpoints. Philip Rizzo, the pastor of City Baptist Church in Hoboken and North Bergen.
“I’m concerned it’s going to open the door to an underground black market,” said the Rev.
#HERMAN GETS HIS DRIVERS LICEANSE LICENSE#
Others in New Jersey warned of unintended consequences: undocumented immigrants who are inadvertently registered to vote when obtaining a license the risk migrants’ private information could be shared with federal immigration authorities and migrants who come to the state only to obtain a license. “So you’re accommodating people who have broken the law?” Peterson said last week during a hearing at the State House. “They’ve broken the law to get here,” Mr. But the legislative action in Trenton still followed years of effort by activists to allay both opponents’ philosophical objections and supporters’ fears that a “yes” vote could be politically fatal.Īssemblyman Erik Peterson, a Republican from Hunterdon County, said the legislation rewarded people for violating the law. In New Jersey, where all licenses are issued by the state Motor Vehicle Commission, activists did not anticipate a similar hurdle. Officials at that office seemed to be ready to process applications, with two employees greeting customers at the door. Those wanting to apply in Rensselaer were being sent to a larger office in Albany, he said. Merola, a Republican, said his decision was practical, not political. “Now they want us to stand at the counter and make a judgment.” “In all the years I’ve been here, we’ve never taken foreign documents,” Mr. The clerk in Rensselaer County, Frank Merola, said on Monday that his office would not be accepting applications from undocumented immigrants, arguing that his employees did not have the training or expertise to determine if foreign passports were legitimate. In sharp contrast with the enthusiastic attitude of those seeking licenses, the state’s new law continued to be met with resistance from county clerks in conservative areas upstate who oversee Motor Vehicles offices and who have said they would refuse to issue licenses. “Get a car and go to Disneyworld,” he said. Guaman has a farther destination in mind. By 1:30 p.m., he was perhaps halfway to the entrance.īut if he gets a license, Mr.
#HERMAN GETS HIS DRIVERS LICEANSE FULL#
office was full of people excited about the opportunity the new legislation had given them.Ĭarlos Alfredo Guaman, 44, said he arrived at the office just before 8 a.m. In Flushing, Queens, despite the cold and snow flurries, the line at a D.M.V. to inform people in line that the office’s testing room was full.īy that point, Roldan Martinez, 33, who said he was applying for a license for the first time, had waited in line for an hour. At one branch in the Bronx, workers went outside around 12:30 p.m. offices in New York City snaked around buildings. Applicants are still required to pass both written exams and road tests.Ī spokeswoman for the state Department of Motor Vehicles said its offices were seeing larger crowds on Monday, as officials had anticipated. New York’s bill expanded the forms of identification that could be used to apply for a driver’s license, which now include a valid foreign driver’s license, a passport or identification from an applicant’s home country and a foreign birth certificate. “Driving is the most fearful part of our lives.” Murphy said he would quickly sign it into law, making New Jersey the 15th state to grant driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.Īdriana Gonzalez, 26, of Toms River, N.J., said it would be hard to overstate how essential licenses will be for her undocumented parents’ lives. On Monday, the hard-fought battle ended as legislation authorizing driver’s licenses for migrants who are not in the country legally passed the Democrat-controlled State Legislature. “It’s about survival,” said Eva Gomez, 39, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who lives in Passaic, N.J. Tasks like grocery shopping, commuting to work, taking a child to school and visiting a doctor all hinge on the ability to drive legally, supporters have argued. In New Jersey, immigration activists and undocumented immigrants had also been fighting for years for the right to obtain driver’s licenses in a state with a large immigrant population that is largely defined by its suburbs and rural swaths, and where public transit often is unavailable or undependable. On Monday, offices in New York were swamped as people previously ineligible to apply for licenses lined up, documents in hand, to seek the legal right to drive. That move was celebrated by undocumented immigrants and activists alike.