Brewer’s order to end migrant driver licenses ‘contradictory`

Gov. Jan Brewer’s executive order denying driver’s licenses and ID cards to undocumented immigrants who obtain work permits through President Barack Obama’s deferred-action program is a significant change in state policy, records obtained by The Arizona Republic show.

Over the past eight years, Arizona issued licenses and ID cards nearly 40,000 times to non-citizens who had federal employment-authorization documents. Since Brewer’s Aug. 15 order, the state has issued more than 1,000 driver’s licenses or ID cards to non-citizens with work permits while denying licenses to those with work permits issued through Obama’s program.

The data show that despite the state’s longstanding practice of issuing driver’s licenses to non-citizens with work permits, Brewer has singled out so-called dreamers, denying them driver’s licenses even when they have work permits.

The federal work permits are identical except for a number that identifies them as recipients of deferred action under Obama’s program. Anyone with that number can’t get a permit under Brewer’s order.

“It’s completely contradictory,” said Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C. “If you give a driver’s license under one of these circumstances, they are all pretty much the same circumstance, so it’s contradictory to say we will give to one but not the other.”

Brewer is one of only a few U.S. governors to deny driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants who receive work permits through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The president’s program allows undocumented immigrants under 31 who were brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the country without the threat of deportation for two years. Those approved for the program receive permits allowing them to work legally in the U.S.

Brewer has argued that undocumented immigrants who receive work permits through the president’s program don’t qualify for Arizona driver’s licenses because they don’t have legal status to be in the U.S., as required by state law.

But that argument does not square with data released to The Republic by the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Division through a public records request. The data show that driver’s licenses, or in some cases state IDs, were issued more than 39,600 times since 2006 to non-citizens who presented federally issued employment authorization documents as primary ID to prove they are authorized to be in the U.S. under federal law.

Work permits

Employment authorization documents are among the 22 forms of primary identification U.S. citizens and non-citizens can use to obtain Arizona driver’s licenses.

The federal documents, also known as work permits, are issued to non-citizens for a variety of reasons, according to Sharon Rummery, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

For instance, non-citizens, both legal and illegal, applying for permanent residency through marriage to a U.S. citizen can receive work permits while they are waiting for their application to be finalized, she said.

The government also commonly issues work permits to illegal immigrants who are fighting their deportation in Immigration Court so they can support themselves while their cases are pending, Rummery said.

The federal government also issues work permits to illegal immigrants for other reasons including to those granted temporary protected status due to natural disasters in their home countries, she said.

Illegal immigrants granted deferred action for other reasons outside of President Obama’s program, such as domestic violence victims, also commonly receive work permits, she said.

Rummery could not say what percentage of work permits go to illegal immigrants.

But several immigration lawyers said they believe the majority of non-citizens who use work permits to get driver’s licenses in Arizona are illegal immigrants placed in deportation proceedings due to the state’s ongoing crackdown on illegal immigrants.

“Probably a large number of (non-ctizens) with employment-authorization documents have no legal status, probably the majority,” said Regina Jefferies, a Phoenix immigration lawyer who chairs the Arizona chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Gerald Burns, a Chandler immigration lawyer, agreed.

“All these people who got detained and placed in immigration proceedings who qualified for cancellation of removal were also able to get work authorization. I’ve got hundreds of them,” he said.

Distinctions

On Tuesday, Matthew Benson, a spokesman for Brewer, said there is a distinction between those who get work permits under Obama’s program and those who receive work permits for other reasons.

Under state law, only those people who can prove that their presence in the U.S. is “authorized under federal law” are eligible for driver’s licenses.

But, in the governor’s view, undocumented immigrants who receive work permits through the president’s deferred-action program are not federally authorized to be in the U.S., Benson said. He cited statements by Department of Homeland Security officials in the past saying that Obama’s program does not give undocumented immigrants any form of legal status, only the ability to stay and work temporarily in the U.S.

Stacey Stanton, director of the state’s Motor Vehicle Division, agreed that people who receive work permits through Obama’s deferred-action program don’t qualify for Arizona driver’s licenses because they don’t have lawful status in the U.S.

Williams, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said Arizona officials are drawing a distinction where there is none.

“It’s almost a meaningless statement to say whether you are here legally or illegally (if you have a work authorization). You are here under color of law,” Williams said. “People are quibbling over whether they have legal status or don’t have legal status.

“It’s actually pretty vague under the law in a lot of these circumstances whether they do or don’t. The proper inquiry is: Are they here under the color of law? Once the government issues you a work authorization, the government is saying, ‘I know you are here, and I am saying you can work while you are here, and I’m not deporting you so you are under the color of law.”

Other states

Besides Arizona, Nebraska and Michigan have declined to issue driver’s licenses to recipients of deferred action under Obama’s program.

In California, lawmakers passed a law ensuring that deferred-action recipients under Obama’s program could get driver’s licenses.

Texas, North Carolina and Georgia also allow deferred-action recipients to get driver’s licenses, while other states are grappling with the issue, Williams said.

Burns, the Chandler lawyer, said the state will likely face a lawsuit as growing numbers of undocumented immigrants issued work permits through Obama’s deferred-action program are denied licenses.

Burns said undocumented immigrants granted work permits through deferred action need licenses to drive to jobs or school. Not allowing them to get driver’s licenses encourages them to drive unlicensed and uninsured, he said.

Cristian Arcega, 24, a Phoenix resident brought to the U.S. illegally from Mexico when he was 9, said he received his work permit Oct. 8, about six weeks after applying for deferred action.

But when he tried to get a license at an MVD office in Phoenix by showing his work permit and Social Security card, he was turned down.

Without a license, Arcega said, he has trouble getting to his job at a Home Depot in Phoenix. He was able to get the job with his new work permit.

He relies on friends for rides or takes the bus.

“It’s really hard because sometimes it takes me an hour to get home, and I get out really late,” he said. “It also makes it really hard to do my schedule.”

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