Can States Regulate Immigration? Part 4b
NY Governor abandons 3-tiered driver license plan
16 Nov 2007 in Regulatory Economics, Regulatory Policy
This week, New York Governor Elliot Spitzer abandoned his plan for a three-tiered driver license program that would have allowed illegal aliens to obtain an inferior-form license.
Spitzer's withdrawal of the plan has been widely reported (e.g., New York Observer, PBS, New York Daily News). Spitzer and other advocates for licensing illegal aliens continue to claim that the inferior-form license would have reduced the incidence of traffic crashes, automobile insurance rates, and even saved lives.
We previously posted on the New York driver license question in the context of varying State efforts to regulate immigration. In particular, we raised the question whether illegal aliens would be motivated to obtain inferior-form licenses clearly marked "not for U.S. government purposes.” Without widespread participation in the program, none of the claimed benefits could be realized even if there was a plausible mechanism linking them to driver licenses.
Advocates for illegal aliens supported Spitzer's original plan, which would have made them eligible for regular driver licenses, but they objected to the three-tiered plan Spitzer negotiated with the federal Department of Homeland Security in which New York State would offer a superior-form driver license that complies with the REAL ID Act. In the advocates' view, the inferior-form license lacked enough value to be worth the effort to obtain it. This suggests that the principal value of a driver license to an illegal alien is the perception of legal status that it creates. The inferior-form license lacked this attribute, and arguably, holding such a license (and no other form of federally approved identification) would only intensify the perception of illegal status, thus making their value negligible or even negative.
Our previous conclusion with regard to the claimed benefits of licensing illegal aliens still stands:
