April 8, 2019. This article highlights the need for licenses and that “immigrants and their advocates have already gotten access to such licenses in a dozen states including California, Colorado and Illinois, some of them accepting state tax returns as identification. They are now targeting roughly a half-dozen states where they see a friendlier political landscape this year. That includes Wisconsin and New Jersey, where Democratic governors succeeded Republicans, and New York, where Democrats now are in total control of the Legislature.”
The article points out that “In New York and elsewhere, the idea of extending new privileges to those without legal immigration status has been resisted. But a renewed push across the country to allow them to get driver’s licenses resonates strongly among those who make their living in the rural crop fields, dairy farms and fruit orchards where the need for everyday transportation can be the greatest.”
In New York, farmworkers make up only about 10,000 of the estimated 265,000 immigrants without legal documents expected to get driver’s licenses, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. But they might get the most use out of licenses.
Read the article.
Read FPI’s report.