Driver’s licenses have been a point of issue, as reported in the Keene Sentinel recently. New Hampshire, unlike some other states, does not allow undocumented immigrants to apply for a driver’s license. Immigrants and their families have to live with emotional and economic struggles daily trying to make ends meet, and also try not to get caught.
According to Pew Research and reported in the Keene Sentinel, there are some 10,000 undocumented immigrants without driver’s licenses in N.H. The American Immigration Council estimated that immigrants paid $20 million in state and federal taxes in 2018. These are folks who pay taxes and participate in society, yet they cannot get a basic form of identification? It’s an important one at that and those of you who have lived here know that N.H. is not known for its public transport infrastructure. Folks like Diniz know this all too well. She is an undocumented immigrant who has to use Uber for work, costing upwards of $400 a week, according to the Keene Sentinel.
Mirka Estrella, who lives with her father and siblings, says that there was always constant fear of her father being deported, as he drove without a license.
“You never know at what moment it could happen,” Estrella told the Keene Sentinel.
Estrella feels this fear, as I’m sure others do as well. The struggle that comes with having an adult family member without a license can cause strife in family units for parents and children alike. Estrella was taught to take herself and siblings with the fear that her father could be deported for being caught driving without a license. Couples like Diniz and her partner and Raphael and his wife struggle with the stress a one driver household puts on them.
There has been effort in the N.H. House to get legislation moving yet to no avail. The opposition fears that allowing undocumented immigrants to have licenses would incentivize voting fraud, which is just not likely. The Heritage Foundation has found 21 cases of fraud since 2006, which is an infinitesimally small percentage of voters over 17 years.
N.H. should really be moving to help these folks become fully free functioning members of society. The struggles that not having a license imposes on people and families is immense and flies in the face of the state motto. If we are supposed to represent “Live Free or Die,” then we need to fully embrace that. Allowing people to legally drive is hardly the worst thing that we can do, especially since these folks are taxpayers.
I feel that supporters in government need to call those in opposition out publicly on this. If officials are going to run on a pro-kid and pro-family platform, they need to follow through; if not, they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to earn political brownie points at the expense of others.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
timothy.fitzpatrick@keene.edu
