New N.C. driver’s licenses will flag non-U.S. citizens

Already in the works is a license that will be issued starting March 25 to one class of non-U.S. citizen: recipients of the federal program implemented by President Barack Obama in August to give a two-year reprieve from deportation for immigrants who meet certain conditions, mostly those brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents.

The program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, allows qualifying immigrants to stay in the U.S. for two years but does not change their residency status.

The license for DACA applicants marks a clear move away from the state’s current licenses, which do not make any distinction for non-U.S. citizens.

Legal immigrants are allowed to apply for driver’s licenses; DACA recipients initially were not allowed N.C. driver’s licenses, but the state will begin issuing them following a January ruling by the N.C. attorney general’s office that they are eligible.

Across the top of the new license is a pink strip. In the center, red capital letters say, “NO LAWFUL STATUS.”

On the side, another set of red capital letters say, “LIMITED TERM,” referring to the license holder’s two-year reprieve from deportation.

According to Moises Serrano, a Yadkin County immigrant activist who has applied for deferred action, the design is similar to the Star of David that Jews were forced to wear in Germany under the Nazi regime.

“This singles me out,” Serrano said. “Imagine trying to get on a flight at the airport, and you have to use this license. It’s an invasion of my privacy. I am undocumented and unashamed, but I say that on my terms.”

The wording was meant to “safeguard the rights of North Carolinians,” said Greer Beaty, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, who said that she has not received any negative feedback about the design. “There are rights that average folks who are citizens have, such as a right to vote. This is a way –– with this, you would know that someone who has the pink bar at the top, they do not have the right to vote.”

License designs for all other non-U.S. citizens will be similar to the one for DACA recipients, she said.

Under state law, a photo ID such as a driver license is not required to register to vote or to vote. In 2011, the Republican-led General Assembly passed a voter ID bill, which was vetoed by former Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat.

“This bill, as written, will unnecessarily and unfairly disenfranchise many eligible and legitimate voters. The legislature should pass a less extreme bill that allows for other forms of identification, such as those permitted under federal law,” Perdue said at the time.

More than 600,000 of the state’s almost 6.4 million registered voters could not be matched with license records, according to the state Board of Elections.

Under Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, a voter ID bill will likely be enacted, making use of the newly designed driver’s licenses, said Francis De Luca, the president of Civitas Institute, a conservative research and policy group based in Raleigh.

“If they’re going to use government-issued ID, that would be a necessary part of it,” De Luca said. “Any license issued to a non-U.S. resident is going to have to be distinct. That’s just common sense.”

It also makes for one big bull’s-eye, said Raul Pinto, staff attorney for the ACLU-N.C. Legal Foundation. Non-U.S. citizens includes a broad class of people, including permanent residents with a “green card” and people in the U.S. on visas, as well as DACA recipients.

Moreover, Pinto said, North Carolina does not have a voter-fraud problem that merits creating separate licenses.

“Let’s say you’re entering a bar and get carded. This is setting you up for all sorts of unintended con-sequences,” Pinto said. “Average folks don’t know what a legal permanent resident is. These are very much legal terms. It’s giving people an avenue for discrimination.”

For the license issued to DACA recipients, it would have been simple to mark the license as distinct without creating a bull’s-eye, he said. Since the license can be issued for only two years –– in line with the two-year reprieve from deportation –– that would have clearly indicated the person is a recipient of deferred action, he said. Regular licenses expire after eight years.

The new tangle over the license designs comes after several months of uncertainty about whether the state would even issue licenses to DACA recipients.

To qualify for the DACA program, the applicant must not have been convicted of a serious crime. Among other requirements, the program blocks the deportation of those who arrived in the U.S. before they turned 16, are not older than 31 and have graduated from high school, attended college or served in the military.

DACA recipients can also apply for a Social Security number and a work permit. In North Carolina, the work permit, known as an Employment Authorization Card, had been accepted as proof of residency, but the Department of Motor Vehicles stopped accepting it from DACA recipients until the legal issue was cleared up.

On Jan. 17, Grayson G. Kelley, the state chief deputy attorney general, said in a letter to DMV Acting Commissioner J. Eric Boyette that DACA recipients fulfill one of the basic requirements for a license: lawful presence. “It is … our opinion that individuals who have been granted deferred action … are lawfully present in the United States during the period of deferment,” Kelley said.

Last week, the N.C. Department of Transportation said it would start issuing driver licenses March 25 to DACA recipients.

“After weeks of review, study and consultation, we’ve found a way to make this right by developing a process that will allow qualified deferred action for childhood arrival applicants to obtain driver licenses, while protecting the rights of all United States citizens,” DOT Secretary Tony Tata said.

Nearly 15,000 applications for the deferred-action program have been submitted from North Carolina between Aug. 15, when the program started, and Jan. 17, according to the latest statistics from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Nationwide, more than 400,000 applications have been submitted. North Carolina is ranked sixth in the number of applications, after California, Texas, New York, Illinois and Florida.

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