DMV offers new appointments

State officials next month will introduce renewal-only appointments to Colorado’s embattled driver’s license program for people living in the U.S. unlawfully as thousands of licenses issued since the program’s inception three years ago are set to expire.

The additional 52 daily appointments will only be available at the Division of Motor Vehicles’ office in Aurora, at E. 14391 4th Ave.

The new slots, which take effect Dec. 1, up the number of appointments offered for the program each day from 155 to 207.

Licenses began to be distributed under the program, created by the legislature in 2013, on Aug. 1, 2014. Between then and Jan. 27, 2015, more than 7,800 driver’s licenses, which are valid for only three years, were issued.

That means those thousands of people now have had to get back in the line for the limited number of appointments offered under the program — jampacked because demand for both first-time and repeat applicants has far outpaced the supply.

The new appointments, which also boost the number of state DMV offices offering services for the program to four, appear aimed at easing some of that backlog.

Fixes for the program have been caught in partisan gridlock, with Democrats trying to bolster the initiative and Republicans blocking their efforts.

There are thought to be 120,000-plus people in Colorado eligible for the driver’s licenses, according to immigrant advocates. As of Oct. 31, about 38,500 licenses have been issued under the program, as well as just under 5,800 permits and about 4,300 identification cards.

There’s a provision in the original legislation that created the program that requires the DMV to reduce the number of offices that offer the program to just one after 66,000 first-time appointments are serviced. That’s now projected to happen in February 2019, the DMV said Friday, much later than what they had earlier projected (May 2018, as of earlier this year).