ALBION, N.Y. (AP) Dairy farm worker Luis Jiménez gambles every time he drives without a license. Even a minor traffic stop could alert immigration agents that he is in the country illegally and lead to deportation.
But in the wide open spaces of upstate New Yorks farm country, supermarkets and job sites are often too far away for walking, theres not always somebody around to give you a ride, and catching a city bus or subway just isnt an option.
Necessity forces us to take a risk, Jiménez said in Spanish as he drove home recently. We have to work, we have to buy food. Sometimes we get sick and workers like me cant drive to a hospital, cant buy medicine. But I feel I need to take the risk so that my kids and my family can have a better life.
In New York and elsewhere, the idea of extending new privileges to those without legal immigration status has been resisted. But a renewed push across the country to allow them to get drivers licenses resonates strongly among those who make their living in the rural crop fields, dairy farms and fruit orchards where the need for everyday transportation can be the greatest.
Immigrants and their advocates have already gotten access to such licenses in a dozen states including California, Colorado and Illinois, some of them accepting state tax returns as identification. They are now targeting roughly a half-dozen states where they see a friendlier political landscape this year. They include Wisconsin and New Jersey, where Democratic governors succeeded Republicans, and New York, where Democrats now are in total control of the Legislature.
Now theres a new urgency to really try to get this done, and there is new political opportunity, said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant advocacy group based in Milwaukee.
The laws could give state-level protection to immigrants who fear more aggressive enforcement by federal immigration agents under the Trump administration. Bolstering those fears is the impending departure, announced over the weekend, of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who had been viewed as resistant to some of the harshest immigration measures supported by Trump and his aides.
Advocates say police would still be able to view drivers past infractions, but they say immigrants producing a valid license will be less likely to face further questions and contact with federal agents.
Its unclear whether attitudes have changed much in New York since 2007, when then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer attempted to adopt such a license measure but was forced to back off amid withering political opposition. A poll from Siena College last month found New York residents still opposing the idea by almost 2 to 1.
State Sen. Daphne Jordan argues the law would lead to voter fraud, bank fraud and identity theft. The Albany-area Republican said an online petition she started found similarly strong opposition.
If they want to stay here, then they should become citizens, Jordan said. We have a system in our country. And its there for a reason. And so just follow the system and be here legally, and thats the answer to all of it.
Advocates say the bill will help the state, as well as immigrants, thanks in part to additional revenue from car registrations and sales taxes. As immigrants register cars, they will buy insurance. They also point to a study that found states with license laws average lower traffic fatality rates, presumably because the immigrant drivers have passed state-administered driving exams.
Not only does it protect the undocumented immigrant farmer who is harvesting our products, our agricultural products, but it protects society as a whole, said sponsoring state Sen. Luis Sepulveda, a Bronx Democrat.
