Following the Affordable Care Act seminar, I also asked the Assembly why he supported granting undocumented residents, or illegal immigrants, drivers' licenses.
He justified his vote because the Los Angeles Police Chief, Charlie Beck, supports the measure.
He also argued that the law will provide future drivers, whether they are in the country illegally or not, to receive proper training before they drive.
These individuals will also be able to purchase car insurance, so that in future accidents, which including illegal immigrant drivers, insurance companies will cover the costs for any damages.
The logic behind Assm. Muratsuchi's decision is flawed on many levels.
What difference does it make what the Los Angeles Police Chief thinks about driver's licenses? Did the Assemblyman contact the police chiefs in Torrance, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, or even the Palos Verdes region? What about the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department?
Their opinion on this policy matters too, and moreso since Muratsuchi represents the South Bay, including the Beach Cities, not Los Angeles.
Yet even if the Police Chief of Los Angeles offered his opinion, his authority on the matter still conveys very little. Why does the Police Chief support the measure? Does he have any research or evidence to support the argument that permitting undocumented immigrants to earn a state document will create safe roads and reduce accident liabilities?
What if Pope Francis had supported drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants? President Bush? Desmond Tutu? Or even Bozo the Clown? An established authority's opinion does not establish any authority for an opinion.
Not only that, but Susana Martinez, the first Hispanic female governor of New Mexico, the most Hispanic state in the Union, opposes drivers licences for illegal immigrants.
Her opinion ought to matter, shouldn't it?
She pointed out to reporters in her state that the roads are not safer since New Mexico adopted the statute to allow licenses for illegal immigrants. She further cited that the rate of fraud and human trafficking has increased because of the law. When runninng for office in 2010, she ran specifically on a platform of repealing the DL law, and she won.
"73% of New Mexicans opposed drivers licenses for illegal immigrants".
Political pressure had forced the repeal of the 2002 California law granting licenses to illegal immigrants. But societal realities should have convinced Assemblyman Muratsuchi to vote against permitting undocumented individuals from obtaining drivers licenses.
The logic behind the measure fails to consider that since individuuals have entered the country illegally, and a number of them are driving anyway, what makes anyone believe that they are going to change their behavior habits and earn a license?
Furthermore, legal and illegal residents drive without insurance, so the notion that someone with a drivers' license will automatically purchase insurance is also illogical.
Eight states have already repealed similar legislation. There is no research which suggests that expanding licenses to illegal immigrants will ensure safe roads and more insured drivers.
Not only that, but Muratsuchi as a former state prosecutor should have rejected any law which would violate the federal immigration laws of our nation.
Hopefully, a legal challenge will force injunction and repeal of this law.
In the mean time, Muratsuchi should have worked with his Republican colleagues to streamline the naturalization process and make it easier for immigrants to become legal residents of the state of California in the first place!
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