Driver's license bill roils a melting pot

On a downtown street corner here, a group of undocumented immigrant workers has interrupted their morning commute to job sites across this sprawling metropolis. The serendipitous gathering has a sense of both confusion and urgency.

"A driver's license would make my life so much easier for me and better for my [employers] as well," says a domestic worker identifying herself only as Monica A. "I waste a third of my day taking buses across town to get to my job and home again."

Getting a driver's license is going to be "much harder now if not impossible," says a companion named Manny. "You can thank Al Qaeda and 9/11 for that."

"Everything is getting harder for us," says a second man. "Getting across the border is tougher. And now, even asking for asylum is going to be more difficult."

The impromptu meeting is another indication that since Sept. 11, 2001, the issues of immigration, visa overstays, cross-border smuggling, and national security have become entwined - often to the consternation of those most affected. The curbside concern is a repeat of other debates that have coalesced on several key occasions dating back a decade to California's Proposition 187, which barred illegal immigrants from public benefits, and in 1998, when the state ended bilingual education.

The immigrants - legal and illegal alike - are gathering outside this local human rights organization both for solidarity and to question the immediate consequences of a bill now pending in Washington.

A bill approved by the US House Feb. 10, which would make driver's licenses unacceptable for federal identification purposes such as boarding commercial aircraft, passed by a vote of 261 to 161. The bill also makes it more difficult for foreigners who arrive in the US to win political asylum. A third provision would speed completion of a three-mile section of fence at the US-Mexican border near San Diego.

Here at the offices of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, executive director Anjelica Salas sums up one set of reactions.

"This bill is a great step backward because at the end of the day it does not address real changes needed in comprehensive immigration reform," says Ms. Salas. She says the law tramples the rights of 11 states which already allow illegals to possess driver's licenses.

While the new law purports to be about limiting driver's licenses to bolster homeland security, it masks a very "narrow minded" provision on political asylum, she says - requiring applicants to "get confirmation from their home government that they are, indeed, being persecuted," she adds. "That provision would be laughable if it were not so outrageous."

The bill's third provision, closing a three-mile-gap in the San Diego border wall does not address "the pull factor of immigrants who want to come to America for jobs. You can build the Great Wall of China," says Salas, "and they will find a way in...."

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