Driver licenses for illegals? An argument in favor....

LINK

quote:

---

The legislation, which City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez plans to introduce Wednesday, makes the case that undocumented immigrants should be able to get the IDs because it would make for safer roads.

---

Cue blowharding and virtue signaling from both parties.

From a city or state’s point of view:

If there are a bunch of illegals in your state, it’s because the federal government isn’t doing its job. If a city cop pulls someone over for a busted tail light, and there’s a family of five illegals in there (ahh, who are we kidding?—you know it’s at least seven), the cop has two choices:
1) detain them until ICE comes and gets them, and your city eats the cost of the process up until that point
2) let ‘em go because it isn’t worth the time it takes to do the paperwork, much less to detain them for who knows how long until ICE shows up.

Obviously, illegals don’t often take driver’s ed, so they are a liability on the road, and there’s no way a state can mitigate that liability without issuing them some form of documentation itself. When you take into account all the hit & runs and fatal collisions caused by illegals, the lack of documentation costs a state dearly. Since a state can’t deport anyone, and since the feds don’t do their job efficiently, what’s a state like New York to do? It’s estimated that offering a state driver license to illegals will result in ~1/3 of eligible people applying for licenses (and more importantly, car insurance), saving the state $57million.

If you’re hit & run by an illegal, you’re screwed. If the federal government couldn’t keep them out, your state might as well offer them their own sort of documentation so you can pursue the situation appropriately.