Web Letters: Immigrant Drivers License Plan Unravels

If the government would do what us taxpayers pay them to do (their jobs), we wouldn't have this problem. If they are undocumented (Illegal) they shouldn't be here in the first place. To even think of giving them a driver's license in the first place isn't a rational thought. I just had a friend die in a car accident due to an illegal immigrant who was intoxicated. Giving him a driver's license isn't going to stop him from getting behind the wheel and killing a 22 year-old boy. It is just going to make him more confident that he can get away with it because he has a driver's license.

Not only do we need more border controls to keep the illegal ones out of th US, we need to put a plan into action to get them out of the United States and send them back to where they came from. Also we need to crack down on these employers that keep hiring them knowing that they are not citizens and are illegals. If it wasn't for the government not being able to control this, I would still have a friend living, and the roads would be more safe.

Garrett Wilcox

Boone, NC

You write: "The original plan, unveiled on September 21, would have brought New York's undocumented immigrants--as many as 1 million people--'out of the shadows,' while improving safety and security by reducing the number of untrained, uninsured drivers and by verifying the identities of hundreds of thousands of people." I find all that questionable to say the least.

That one million people would step right up and self-identify just in order to get legal status to drive is absurd. These are the very same people for whom legal status has not been a concern so far, for matters far more serious than mere driving. I cannot see how they would find the benefits of having a driver's license would outweigh the risks of registering with the State, particularly when they're driving already with no license.

I can, however, see a multitude of downsides to American citizens should a state provide a citizen of another country with a document that we use to prove residency and for all other manner of identification purposes.

In Europe they issue "international" drivers licenses. That'd be fine to offer here too--maybe at the federal level--but definitely not a NY State version.

Duane Galensky

Beallsville, PA

I really don't understand why it's so hard to follow the law of the land. To get a driver's license, you need a birth record. That's the first step in showing who you are. Then a Social Security number to prove you live and belong here.

Ronald Buckhalter

Muskegon, MI

As you have seen in New York with drivers licenses and immigration reform in the Senate, this is an issue that can bite Democrats in the rear in the next election. Candidates to the House and Senate will be particularly vulnerable on this issue. Ordinary American people understand that business interests are using illegal immigrants and guest worker programs to drive down wages. Clinton has promised Silicon Valley an increase in a guest worker program for foreign computer workers when we have more than enough Americans to supply the county's needs. Sympathy for these workers is understandable, but we cannot solve the world's problems within our borders.

Pervis J. Casey

Riverside, CA

At the end of the day, Eliot Spitzer was a victim of his own ego, propelled by an overabundance of arrogance. The genie is out of the bottle--all the spinmeisters in New York will not rescue his doomed career. His wisdom failed him, and constituents never forget that.

Michael H. Thomson

Paeonian Springs, VA

You're wrong in saying: "What driver's license opponents cannot admit is that undocumented immigrants are here to stay."

That would be true only if the entire nation was populated by folks such as yourself. Surprised yuh, did it, the flashpoint reaction to this insane proposal? Welcome to the real world. Many fools seem to ass-u-me that what they hover over feverishly deep into the night in front of their computer screens, surrounded by reams of papers and reports and stuff, is actually a realistic view of their environment.

Meanwhile, the world comes up 'n bites 'em inna arse. The people have spoken. No, we will not allow those who don't care about a nation's laws and conventions to gain a highly privileged right and honor of citizenship.

Funny, how it's only the conspiciously "well-off" folks who generally seem to want to keep allowing these trespassers into the country. Most native poor and working-class and middle-class citizens are mildly to totally against the concept.

Basically, we ain't falling for the malarky any more. I'll close with this: anybody in favor of having foreign trespassers blatantly flout our laws should be willing to allow that person/family to stay with them, personally. Put 'em up in the spare room, next to your kid, or the garage. Let 'em use your toilet and bathtub. Serve them dinner, with your plates and utensils.

Do it, and I'd be willing to reconsider my p.o.v. Other than that, guys like you are little more than shrill banshees howling in the wind.

James S. Gagliardi

Central Islip, NY

This was a horrible idea, that is why 2/3rds of New Yorkers were against it.

Arthur Taylor

Baltimore, MD

The worst part of all this is now that we can't license illegals, global warming is going to increase another 11%. Not sure how these intellectual forward-looking ladies who wrote the article missed that one. The conservatives probably just don't want a paper trail for the next time they contract illegals to drive or fly explosives into more buildings like Bush did on 9/11. Glad I'm a smart liberal.

Mike Oxbig

Saint Paul, MN