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Health & Fitness

Immigration: State Driver's Licenses for Illegal Immigrants

Illegal immigrants in the State of Connecticut should be able to start obtaining valid driver’s licenses in Connecticut in January, 2015. 

 

Last May, 2013 a bill passed both the Connecticut State House of Representatives and the Connecticut Senate which will allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, for “driving purposes only”. 

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Any applicant wishing to obtain a driver’s license in Connecticut will need to provide documentation of identity, such as a passport, and prove that they have lived in Connecticut for at least 90 days (such as copies of utility bills, credit card bills, valid lease, bank statements, school records, medical/dental records, etc).  The driver’s licenses should be valid for 3 years instead of 6 years and will need to be renewed every 3 years.  A driving test will be required, and a background check showing no felony convictions in Connecticut.

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This bill was passed into law in an effort to improve highway safety for all in Connecticut.  Illegal immigrants are driving on our highways in Connecticut.  The legislature felt that it is a safer measure to require everyone who is driving on our highways to have to take a test, be knowledgeable of safe driving rules and regulations, and be entered into the DMV data system.  This may help to reduce accidents, reduce the number of unlicensed and un-insured or under-insured drivers in our state.  Governor Daniel Malloy said that, “This bill is first and foremost about public safety.”  The new law will allow the state of Connecticut to know who is driving on our roads, and ensure that the drivers are safe, operating registered and insured vehicles.

 

Undocumented childhood arrivals already have access to driver’s licenses in the state, meaning those children who arrived in the US prior to their 16th birthdays are already eligible to obtain valid driver’s licenses under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  The new law will extend driver’s licenses to most illegal immigrants in Connecticut. 

 

The information which illegal immigrants provide to the DMV for the licenses, however, may not be used against them for purposes of enforcing immigration laws.  There are already 8 other states and the District of Columbia  that have approved similar laws including  Nevada, Utah, Washington, Maryland, Oregon, Connecticut, California, New Mexico, and Illinois, along with the District of Columbia.

 

On January 2, 2014, the first day that driver’s licenses were to be issued in Las Vegas, Nevada, the most recent state to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, there were thousands of undocumented immigrants lined up outside the Department of Motor Vehicle offices well before they opened their doors.

 

California's Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, in signing his state's law last year, said "No longer are undocumented people in the shadows. They are alive and well and respected in the State of California."

 

Soon, undocumented immigrants will also be alive and well and respected in the State of Connecticut too.






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