Would giving illegal immigrants driver’s licenses make our New Jersey roadways safer?

According to those who favor doing this, “Proponents of the bill say it will make New Jersey’s roads safer because it would require newly licensed drivers to be tested, trained and insured. The bill also would help the state’s economy, supporters say, because the number of customers who could purchase automobiles and car insurance would grow.”

Those against in New Jersey, “But critics argue that giving licenses to undocumented immigrants rewards lawbreakers and leads to fraud and security concerns.

“Our research shows that it’s a very bad idea, and one big reason is because of the fraud because people’s identities cannot be established,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that favors more limits on immigration. “If they are in the country illegally, we are not going to be able to authenticate their identity to know that this license that is being issued is to the person they say they are.””

Here is an answer to doing this from the father of someone killed by an unlicensed (illegal immigrant) driver in a letter to the Editor of the LA Times,

“To the editor: My son was killed by an unlicensed driver in November 2010. I originally believed that licensing those here illegally would make the roads safer. My extensive research on the issue made it very clear that licensing this group of people would not make the roads safer, as I testified in Sacramento against AB 60.

Unfortunately, my conclusions were correct.

According to former Assemblyman Luis Alejo, author of AB 60, “our roads and highways are safer for everyone.” (“California driver’s license program for those here illegally surpasses 1 million drivers,” April 5)

Since illegal immigrants became eligible for driver’s licenses in 2015, traffic fatalities through 2016 have increased by 19%. In 2016, California had the most traffic deaths (3,680) since 2007 (3,967). Los Angeles saw a roughly 40% increase in 2016.

Furthermore, the article stated that according to Stanford University researchers, hit-and-run collisions dropped an estimated 7%. That “study” was based on a “formula”

In 2014, Los Angeles had 22,520 hit-and-runs. By 2015 that number had risen to 26,557 and had already surpassed 14,000 halfway through 2016, representing an increase of about 20% in the period the Stanford researchers claimed hit-and-runs were down statewide by 7%.

Safer? Really?

Don Rosenberg, Westlake Village”

For those who think that giving these people who are already ignoring our immigration laws a drivers license is a good idea, you are thinking with your heart instead of your head.

There are a myriad of problems, from insuring that they are who they say they are to the fact that there is no way to make sure that by giving out these licenses that the regular ones are not then invalid for security purposes.

And yes I know that there are ways to ensure that some of the required information is real and not fake, but there is no way in hell that by giving out these licenses is a guarantee that these people would follow our laws. Remember that they are already breaking them by being here!

This is just a very bad idea by those on the left and it gives the conservatives more ammo to torpedo any true immigration reforms.

It is way past time for true immigration reform and stop this stop-gap law making at the state level.

That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike