HispanicVista Columnists
Rep. Sensenbrenner’s myopic $25-billion driver’s license Real ID Act
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By
Patrick Osio, Jr./HispanicVista.com - November 3, 2005
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(The opinions expressed by Patrick Osio, Jr. are solely his and do not necessarily reflect those of HispanicVista.com, editorial board of advisors or it’s contributing writers.)
To comply with the “save the nation from terrorists using driver’s licenses to hop on planes and the bonus – deprive illegal immigrants driver’s licenses” imposed by myopic Congressman, F. James Sensenbrenner, is estimated to be 25-billion dollars. But it’s not the Federal government that has to foot the bill – it’s the individual states. And from where will the money come from? More state taxes? You don’t like that? OK, how about less money for education, or state highways, health care, law enforcement? You don’t like that either? Well, tough, the money has to come from somewhere and it’s not going to be from the Federal government because Sensenbrenner made sure of that.
Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) is a constant winner of “Taxpayer Friend” and “Taxpayer Hero” awards, of course he votes no on tax increases in Congress while passing on the responsibility for funding rash measures onto state legislatures.
Sensenbrenner introduced the Real ID Act pointing out that several of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists used driver’s licenses to board planes, He added, “By targeting terrorists travel, the Real ID will assist in our war on terror efforts to disrupt terrorists operations and help secure our borders.”
So let’s see what we are getting for $25-billion – terrorists will not be able to travel in the US, presumably because they won’t have driver’s licenses; and our borders will be secure, presumably because illegal immigrants won’t be able to get driver’s licenses and thus, his theory must go, they will not enter the US or at least not drive without a license.
Of course, Sensenbrenner never mentioned what it would cost individual states to implement his nation saving legislation. Why? Because, Congress would not be voting to fund his debacle.
This was very evident in the way he pushed through the Real ID Act – he didn’t introduce it as a stand alone legislation so that all members of Congress could review it, and debate it. No, that would open the door to those who may not agree, and for individual states to ask questions, such as “what are you talking about?” and from where is the funding coming?.
What Sensenbrenner did was to first negotiate the act in secret backroom dealings barring the presence of minority party members so that there was not one single hearing in either chamber on his proposal. Then he attached the act to the legislation for funding the war in Iraq – so a no vote would reject the funds needed by our troops in Iraq. So the Real ID Act went through.
The deadline for the standardized digital driver’s license system is May of 2008. So that the approximately 227 million people with licenses or ID cards issued by state DMVs and with renewals running at about 70 million per year makes the burden for compliance an impossible task and of course extremely costly.
A number of states don’t issue licenses to illegal immigrants already, yet they still enter and drive. So the act doesn’t affect them.
Assuming the ‘terrorists’ are not already imbedded in the US as legal residents or even citizens, but as the 9/11 bunch enter the US legally – do they need a driver’s license to fly around the country? No they don’t. If they enter as tourists, they have a passport and visa, which is all the ID they need to get a flight. The US gets over 36 million annual visitors – they fly in and travel around the US without the need of driver’s licenses. So this silly act does nothing to stop them from taking flights from one US city to another.
If the Real ID Act doesn’t prevent terrorists from entering and getting around the country, and if it doesn’t stop illegal immigrants from continuing to enter the country and driving, who does the act affect? You and me.
In addition to footing the bill, each of us will have to ‘qualify’ for the new driver’s license on renewal. Each state will have to verify with the issuing office all documents presented – that means birth certificates, social security cards, utility bills. Each state will be required to link their license database so they can all be accessed as a single network. This also means that other government agencies will have access to each of our files – how is that for big brother?
And suppose your birth certificate has you as “James” but your Social Security card shows “Jim” – well, then you got a problem and you must straighten that out with the issuing office. Married women will have to present their marriage certificate; and those who legally changed their name for other reasons will need court papers.
And all these documents will have to pass the inspection of those highly qualified document scrutinizer, the DMV clerks
Rep. Sensenbrenner has my vote as the poster child for Congressional term limits.
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Patrick Osio, Jr is Editor of HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com). Contact at Posiojr@hispanicvista.com
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