On immigration, N.M. deals with cost of D.C. inaction

Washington’s inability or unwillingness to reform our broken immigration system has forced states to take some creative steps to deal with resulting problems. In 2003, New Mexico began offering driver’s licenses and identification cards to undocumented immigrants.

The controversial idea colored the most recent Democratic presidential candidate debate when Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd argued about a similar proposal in New York. In New Mexico, the change, coupled with a new program that checks whether drivers are insured, has drastically reduced the number of uninsured drivers, but it’s also led to a controversy over potential illegal voting.

Before the change, New Mexico had the highest rate of uninsured motorists in the nation – one in every three drivers. Now, New Mexico’s uninsured motorist rate is 10.8 percent, well below the national average of 14 percent.

Many undocumented immigrants living in New Mexico drove before the law changed. Some caused accidents. Their status as uninsured motorists put a financial burden on drivers who were legal citizens and insured.

Washington’s failure to address the immigration problem was having a tangible, negative effect on New Mexicans, so the state’s leaders acted. Licensing undocumented immigrants to drive allows them to obtain insurance and helps protect New Mexicans.

Since 2003, the state has issued about 34,000 driver’s licenses and identification cards to people who provided something other than a social security number – such as a tax identification or Mexican identification number – when applying. That doesn’t necessarily mean all 34,000 are undocumented immigrants, but it’s reasonable to assume that’s true of the majority.

The fact that a greater percentage of them are obtaining auto insurance is a success.

But the change has created another controversy. The state puts voter registration forms in Motor Vehicle Division offices for anyone who wants to pick one up, fill it out and mail it to the secretary of state. The state Republican Party argues that legitimizing undocumented immigrants by giving them driver’s licenses, and offering voter registration forms in the same place, could encourage them to register to vote, even though doing so is illegal.

The state wouldn’t put the forms in MVD offices if doing so didn’t encourage registration. It’s likely that some undocumented immigrants have registered as a result.

Republicans have requested the names of the 34,000 people who obtained a license or identification card without providing a social security number. They want to crosscheck them against voter rolls to find out how many undocumented immigrants are voting illegally.

Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration has refused to release the list, citing executive privilege and a federal law that keeps driver’s license records private except for a few exemptions, including research. The GOP sued, but lost in state district court. It’s appealing.

This controversy is a result of problems Washington leaders have created with their inaction on immigration reform. Comprehensive reform should make New Mexico’s driver’s-license fix inappropriate and useless, but such reform would have to make crossing the border illegally more difficult, ease the path to legal immigration, deal fairly with the millions already here illegally and help address economic disparity in Latin America.

Until that happens, New Mexico’s driver’s-license law is necessary; however, the state should reconsider providing voter registration forms at MVD offices.

A version of this article was published today in the Albuquerque Tribune. I write a column for the newspaper that runs on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month. It also ran today on the Diary of a Mad Voter blog published by both the Denver Post’s Politics West and the independent Web site NewWest.net. Beginning today, I am a weekly contributor to that blog.