Bust may be driving force for licenses

THE ARREST of a pizza delivery man picked up by ICE agents at a Brooklyn military base has revved up calls for the state to allow undocumented immigrants to receive driver’s licenses.

Twelve states plus the District of Columbia make it possible for undocumented immigrants to hold driver’s licenses regardless of their status.

But New York, despite past efforts, remains on the list of states that leaves noncitizens out in the cold.

Gov. Cuomo’s reps said he has long supported providing driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. But they said history proves that trying to push through such a plan via executive order is doomed to fail.

Then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer was forced to back away from his proposal in 2007 amid the threat of legal challenges and the opposition of upstate county clerks vowing to ignore a potential order.

The issue is particularly thorny in New York since county clerks run most of the state’s Department of Motor Vehicle offices.

Just last month, Erie County Clerk Mickey Kearns said he won’t budge even if the legislature passes a bill currently in committee in Albany that would allow undocumented immigrants to get a state license.

The bill, known as the Driver License Access and Privacy Act, would allow them to apply for a license using foreign passports and a signed affidavit saying they don’t have a Social Security number.

“I cannot in good conscience follow through on a policy that would violate federal laws by knowingly providing government identification to people here illegally,” Kearns said in May.

Until 2003, New York State allowed residents to apply for driver’s licenses without regard to their immigration status.

If that were to happen again, it’s estimated that within three years, an estimated 265,000 unauthorized immigrants would get licenses, a 2% increase in the total number of people with licenses. That includes 150,000 in New York City, where the majority of the state’s unauthorized immigrants live, 51,000 on Long Island, 53,000 in the Hudson Valley and 11,000 in Northern and Western New York.