CHENANGO COUNTY – While 29 county clerks from across the state are strongly opposing Governor Eliot Spitzer’s push to license immigrants without Social Security numbers, Chenango’s clerk says it’s too early to weigh-in on the still-developing plan that many claim will arm illegal aliens and terrorists.
“I’m not opposed. I’m not for it,” said county clerk Mary Weidman. “It’s still too early to tell.”
The first phase targets legal New York residents who have previously held driver’s licenses but lost them due to Social Security number issues. However, the hotly-debated second phase, which is still in development, removes restrictions that prevented illegals from getting licenses in the past, but it’s unclear if that’s who’s being targeted, considering Spitzer is still seeking to make state residency a requirement for all new applicants.
Regardless, Weidman says neither she, nor any other clerk, are in a position to challenge policies handed down from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
“We’re not policy makers, we’re agents of the DMV,” said Weidman. “Regardless of my personal feelings, I’m legally committed to be an agent of the DMV.”
Implimenting the plan should not be a problem, since their function will only be to gather information, Weidman says, adding that decisions on the new licenses will be made in Albany.
Spitzer has reversed a 1995 DMV law created under then governor George Pataki that says applicants for a driver’s license have to provide a valid Social Security number. Pataki’s law prevented illegal immigrants from getting licenses, but also deterred legal immigrants – of all backgrounds – from renewing theirs, which required them to go through a federal procedures to prove they were U.S. citizens that are “ineligible” for a Social Security number, Spitzer claims.
Pataki’s policy was meant as a tool to track dead-beat moms and dads who failed to pay child support, Spitzer says.
The governor claims his new policy will make the roads safer, strengthen anti-fraud measures, and increase overall security.
Critics of the measure, most of them Republican, say illegal immigrants and terrorists will abuse Spitzer’s system to falsify their identities and gain a stronger foothold in the state.
Based on her interpretation of information and guidelines provided by the DMV, Weidman says the claims that illegals and terrorists will have free reign are political scare tactics.
“The response has been very rash at this point,” she said. “It’s very politicized.”
Weidman says applicants will still have to provide valid passports and 14 proofs of identity, rather than the normal six. She added that plans for state-run photo verification systems and legal residency requirements are still being worked out.
The second phase of the plan, which will begin roughly mid-year 2008, will open up the process to new license applicants, and it is still unclear if illegal immigrants will be eligible for a license.
“There is still a lot to be worked out and questions to be answered,” said Weidman. “I’m expecting the governor will go through the process with DMV and the legislature. I hope this will be handled thoroughly.”
Weidman and Deputy Clerk Ron Siok don’t think the plan will allow illegals to get a license.
“If we are issuing licenses to people that are here illegally, I don’t think we’ll support that,” Siok said.
The first phase, which has already begun, will invite 152,000 former New York state driver’s license holders who don’t have, or are ineligible for, a Social Security number to renew their expired licenses, which has been prohibited since 1995.
That number includes current license holders whose Social Security numbers don’t match the ones given on their license.
Of the 152,000 eligible for the first phase, seven are in Chenango County.
In all, there are 281 county immigrants and/or residents who will be newly eligible for a driver’s license, according to data provided by Weidman.
The issue reached a boiling point when the New York Association of County Clerks passed a resolution against Spitzer’s action. Weidman, a Democrat, abstained from that vote.
Republicans say Spitzer plans to take legal action against anyone who refuses to implement the immigrant DMV law, sparking GOP leaders in the Assembly to create a bill that would protect county clerks that oppose the governor in what they say is an “illegal” tactic.
“Illegal Eliot is at it again: This time he’s threatening to sue – in a sense, legally steamroll – those courageous County Clerks who refuse to break the law by implementing his policy that would hand out driver’s licenses to illegal aliens,” said Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco (R – Schenectady – Saratoga) in a prepared statement Thursday.
Spitzer countered, saying “the assertion that DMV lacks the power to make this policy change represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the applicable law.”
Spitzer says even under Pataki’s regime, 500,000 people without Social Security numbers obtained driver’s licenses since the 1995.
Under the new plan, rather than prove with documentation that they are ineligible for a Social Security number, which illegals are prohibited from doing, an applicant will have to check a box saying they are ineligible. They will all be required to provide 14 points of identity proof.
• Unlicensed drivers contribute to five times as many deadly accidents as licensed drivers. “It is unlicensed drivers — not immigrants — that are a threat to public safety,” he said.
• The law will also bring “people out of the shadows and into the system will create records that will help law enforcement solve and prevent crimes — including terrorism.”