Tag Archives: Department of Motor Vehicles

Suspended For Following The Law

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The lack of respect for basic legal principles on the part of some of our elected officials is getting totally out of control. It used to be understood that if you broke the law, you got arrested, and possibly spent some time in jail. Now it depends on which law, which police department, and whether or not you are here illegally. There is no consistent rule of law anymore.

Yesterday Fox News posted an article about a Virginia police officer who has been suspended from his job.

The article reports:

A Virginia police officer was suspended after allegedly turning over a suspected undocumented immigrant to federal authorities following a traffic accident last month.

The Fairfax County Police Department didn’t identify the officer in a statement released Tuesday but said the incident occurred on Sept. 21 when an officer was dispatched to a car accident.

The officer discovered one of the drivers didn’t have a Virginia driver’s license and ran a check with the state Department of Motor Vehicles, police said. The check revealed the driver had a violation for failing to appear for a deportation hearing.

The officer verified the warrant and alerted officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

An ICE agent was close by and arrived at the scene. The officer cited the driver for not having a driver’s license and turned them over to the federal agent.

The Fairfax County Police Department enacted a 2007 policy that prohibits officers from confirming a person’s immigration status and detaining them solely based on civil violations of immigration law.

“This is an unfortunate issue where the officer was confused,” Police Chief Edwin Roessler Jr. said. “We have trained on this issue a lot. This is the first time we’ve had a lapse in judgment, and the officer is being punished.”

The article concludes:

The officer involved has been on the job for a few years, Roessler told The Washington Post. He added that the officer did not willfully violate the department’s policy with respect to cooperating with immigration officials.

He said the officer will undergo remedial training.

I think the people in charge need to undergo remedial training.

How To Allow Non-Citizens To Vote Without Being Noticed

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On Thursday The New York Post posted an article about a mistake in a bill about voter registration.

The article reports:

A typo in the state’s automatic voter registration bill would have forced non-citizens to register despite their ineligibility — but lawmakers vowed it would be fixed.

The bill directs designated state agencies such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, State Board of Elections and Department of Social Services to automatically enroll residents who fill out any paperwork with their agencies.

An “opt-out” box would let people choose not to enroll. But sloppily written instructions specifically directed ineligible non-citizens to not check the box.

The instructions were actually supposed to tell them to check the box so they wouldn’t inadvertently be registered.

“There is a drafting error which [the Democratic] majority has recognized will be fixed in a chapter amendment,” Assembly Democrats wrote in a memo obtained by The Post.

A “chapter amendment” means lawmakers will pass the bill as-is and then edit the language after the fact.

The Assembly is supposed to vote on the bill Thursday. The Senate already passed the measure — typo included — Wednesday by a 43-to-19-vote margin.

But Assembly Republicans seethed because the intended vote comes three days after Gov. Cuomo signed the controversial “Green Light” bill granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

It will be interesting to see if they actually fix their mistake.

The article explains that the sole requirement for registering to vote in New York State is a driver’s license. If non-citizens have driver’s licenses, they will be able to register to vote–even if they are here illegally. One way to combat this is to check the voter registration rolls against the list of people who have declined jury duty because they are not citizens. However, I find it very unlikely that New York State will do this.

The conventional wisdom is that illegal aliens will vote Democrat. In New York State that really won’t impact presidential elections. Generally New York City votes Democrat, and its population is large enough to overpower the rest of the State and give the Democrats the Electoral College votes for President. However, allowing illegal aliens to vote could make a significant difference on local elections. Any remaining Republican pockets in New York State would quickly disappear.

How The Government’s Actions Impact Ordinary Americans

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On Saturday The American Thinker posted an article about how illegal immigration impacts ordinary Americans. Every American who says, “I don’t pay attention to politics” needs to hear this story.

The story reports:

The other day I received a letter from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) instructing me to renew my driver’s license in person. The letter stated I was required to take a vision test and a new photo. The letter also provided me with a phone number to schedule an appointment. 

When I called the number, the representative told me that the next available appointment to visit my local DMV was 8 weeks later, well beyond the expiration date of my driver’s license. The representative explained it was due to undocumented immigrants, what we used to call illegal aliens, now being able to obtain driver licenses, and that my best bet was to simply go to my local DMV office and see if I could receive a same-day appointment. Thank you Governor Moonbeam Jerry Brown.

You can follow the link above to read the rest of the story, but just the beginning makes a very valid point. When you add 5 million or so brand new people to America, you overload the existing systems. How will the 5 million or so people granted amnesty impact your local Division of Motor Vehicles, hospitals, traffic, public housing, schools, local charities, public transportation, public services, and unemployment? Aside from the fact that President Obama’s executive action is unconstitutional, and aside from the fact that executive amnesty will eventually cost us $7.2 billion per year (rightwinggranny.com), can America absorb this number of new people and still provide jobs and opportunities for those who are legally citizens?

It’s A Little Late To Discover This

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The Sun Journal in New Bern, North Carolina,(no link–current article available only to subscribers) posted an article today about a state audit of voters in North Carolina that indicates that hundreds of people on North Carolina voter rolls aren’t U.S. citizens — and are ineligible to vote.

The article states:

The State Board of Elections said in a news release late Friday that it found 1,425 registered voters who are likely non-citizens in an analysis of data from the state Division of Motor Vehicles and the federal Department of Homeland Security.   

The announcement comes less than two weeks before an Election Day that features the close race between Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan and her Republican challenger Thom Tillis. The contest will help determine which party controls the Senate.   

“We are working to ensure that no ballot cast by a noncitizen will count in this or any future election,” Kim Westbrook, the board’s executive director, said in a statement.   

The board is preparing instructions for local elections officials to challenge ballots under a process that would give the voters a chance to prove their citizenship. The board says it’s a crime for a noncitizen to register or vote.

The article further reported:

On Friday, a coalition of voting rights groups expressed concern about the audit in a letter to state elections officials. It cited laws regarding maintenance of voting rolls and urged caution when comparing voter rolls to data from the DMV and federal immigration officials.

 The letter was signed by Project Vote, Demos, Fair Elections Legal Network, American Civil Liberties Union, NALEO Educational Fund, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, and Action NC.

 “Our organizations are deeply concerned about maintaining access to the polls for all of North Carolina’s voters in keeping with the requirements of the NVRA,” the letter said, referring to the National Voter Registration Act.

There are requirements in the NVRA that voter lists be periodically audited and purged of people who have died, moved out of an area, or for some reason are ineligible to vote. Unfortunately, the Department of Justice under Eric Holder chose not to enforce these laws.

Judicial Watch is an organization that has worked tirelessly in recent years to ensure the integrity of the vote in America. Their latest victory has been in Indiana, where 700,000 voters were moved to “inactive status” as a result of a May 2014 statewide mailing to all registered voters. This mailing was the result of efforts by Judicial Watch and True the Vote. They had been advocating in court for two years to get this mailing to take place. Statistically, nearly 1 in 5 Indiana voter registrations are for people who have moved and no longer live at the address associated with that voter’s outdated registration. That is a scary statistic.

Depending Where You Live, Renewing Your Drivers License May Be More Complicated Than It Has Been In The Past

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A friend posted the following on Facebook:

I went with Howard to DMV this morning when he renewed his drivers license for the first time since the new government program went into effect. Since we had the required documents with us – certified birth certificate, passport, proof of social security, tax bill, and utility bill it was less of a hassle than I expected it to be. However, there were a few people ahead of us that were told that they didn’t have all the documents needed for a verified drivers license.

I was puzzled by this post and did some investigating. It seems that Connecticut has a new program for renewing driver’s licenses.

The Examiner posted an article on this change in March 2012, and the Connecticut Mirror posted and article about it in September 2011.

The Connecticut Mirror states:

Connecticut launched a campaign today to publicize how to obtain a driver’s license that meets the stricter verification standards of a federal “Real ID” law passed in 2005, but never implemented in face of objections from two dozen states.

Beginning Oct. 3, drivers in Connecticut will have two choices when renewing their licenses: accept a license stamped “not for federal identification,” or provide proof of residence and immigration status for an ID with a gold star.

The Examiner reports:

The Real ID Act, enacted in 2005 in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks, sets forth certain requirements for state driver’s licenses and identification cards in order for the cards to be accepted by the federal government for “official” purposes. The purposed federal program, expected to go into effect in 2017, would require verified state identification to enter government buildings, pass airport security even for domestic flights, and possibly other commercial transactions.

Connecticut rolled out its verified driver’s license and identification card program, called SelectCT ID, in October of last year. Connecticut will phase in the new verified driver’s licenses over the next six years as driver’s licenses are renewed. At least for the first renewal, Connecticut residents are given the choice of obtaining a verified driver’s license or a regular driver’s license. If a regular driver’s license is chosen, it will not be acceptable for official federal government purposes. As early as 2017, people without verified state identification may need to show a US passport for domestic air travel.

So let me get this straight. You don’t have to show an ID card to vote, but you have to bring all sorts of additional documentation to get a drivers license that will allow you to board an airplane as a passenger.

This is a total “Beam me up, Scotty” moment.

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Something To Watch For As We Approach 2012

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John Hinderaker at Power LIne posted a story today about recent activities by the Obama Justice Department that will make voter fraud more difficult to prevent. The Department of Justice has announced that it has rejected South Carolina’s voter identification law.

The article reports:

Department of Motor Vehicles executive director Kevin Shwedo said the state Election Commission knew it was using inaccurate data when it released reports showing nearly 240,000 active and inactive voters lacked driver’s licenses or ID cards.

Shwedo sent the state’s attorney general an analysis showing that 207,000 of those voters live in other states, allowed their ID cards to expire, probably have licenses with names that didn’t match voter records or were dead. He said the commission created “artificially high numbers to excite the masses.”

When the motor-voter law was passed, it required states to periodically examine their voting lists to eliminate people who had died or moved from the state. Unfortunately, in many states, that portion of the law has not been enforced. That is one of many reasons why voter identification is needed in all elections.

Voter identification requirements are not about denying people the right to vote–the are about ensuring that every man’s vote counts equally. When voter fraud is allowed to flourish, all Americans should be concerned.

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