If there was a valid licensed driver driving the vehicle, the Geneseo police chief, Eric Osganian, said in a statement after the two sisters were pulled over, there would have been no need to call Border Patrol to confirm the ID of the driver.
As many as 12 states, along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, offer drivers licenses for unauthorized immigrants, up from three in 2010. New York, which has the third-largest immigrant population in the country, is not one of them.
In large sections of the United States, unauthorized immigrants drive without a license anyway to work, to shop or to take their children to school or other activities. Carlos Cardona, 28, who works on a dairy farm outside of Rochester, said he had no choice the night his infant daughters fever spiked. He drove to get her medicine. I know we are in another country that is not our own, and I dont like breaking the law, he said in an interview in Spanish, but when it comes to my family, I have to take risks.
Luis Jimenez, 33, another dairy worker who said that he drove without a license, said: We are workers. We are not here to harm anybody. We need things to advance.
Supporters of efforts to allow those who are undocumented to get drivers licenses say that public safety would improve because they would be required to pass road tests and obtain insurance. But critics said that licenses represented a privilege that unauthorized immigrants should not hold, because they should not be here in the first place.
Outside of Rochester, Tony Bartolucci, a pastor, and his daughter were struck by an unlicensed, undocumented driver on their way to buying a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve in 2015. His daughter, Giana, 14, died six months later after brain surgery.
It was the second time that he was caught in the country illegally, Mr. Bartolucci said. And both times were due to his being drunk while driving. Obviously, if he wasnt in the country illegally, it wouldnt have happened either. But Im not going to make a political point about it.
He believes in restricting illegal immigration and thinks that giving drivers licenses to people in the country illegally is just a non sequitur. But at the same time, Mr. Bartolucci said, he has forgiven his daughters killer.
While Connecticut and Vermont enacted laws in 2013 that allow noncitizens to obtain licenses, a similar effort in New York has made little progress in more than a decade.
In 2007, Gov. Eliot Spitzer ordered that unauthorized immigrants be given licenses, but within two months, he was forced to rescind the order under pressure from upstate county clerks serving as officers of the Department of Motor Vehicles who refused to enforce it. Bills supporting the idea have been introduced in the State Assembly the last three years, but in June, another legislative session ended without a bill for limited purpose drivers licenses getting out of the transportation committee.
Advocates for a grass-roots campaign, Green Light NY: Driving Together, to offer the licenses considered this years effort a test run for next year. They emphasized the public safety aspect of having noncitizen licenses so that all drivers know the rules of the road and carry insurance.
Senator Kathleen A. Marchione, a Republican representing the Upper Hudson Valley, was the president of the New York State Association of County Clerks when it opposed Gov. Spitzers initiative in 2007. She does not understand the argument for giving licenses to those who are undocumented.
Driving without a license should not give you a right to have a drivers license when you are already breaking the law in two instances, she said in an interview. Thats like saying if a kid is drinking at 16 years old, we might as well let him.
Senator Marchione said that the associations main objection in 2007 still stands: that creating a license designated for unauthorized immigrants could enable would-be terrorists to obtain identification. (Some of the Sept. 11 hijackers used state drivers licenses to check in for their flights.)
The Assembly bill, proposed by a Queens Democrat, Francisco Moya, however, would ensure that the card would not be legal for federal purposes boarding an airplane or entering federal buildings.
In New York State, drivers licenses are offered to green card holders with Social Security numbers, and those with temporary visitor or work visas, including recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Applicants must provide proof of residence and forms of identification that are weighted on a point scale.
Anne Doebler, a private immigration lawyer in Buffalo, said that undocumented immigrants want to follow traffic laws, and that civil law and immigration law should be kept distinct. Why do we want to use our vehicle and traffic laws to enforce an immigration policy when its detrimental to public safety? she asked.
I dont want someone to hit me who doesnt have insurance, she said. I dont care what their immigration status is.
A recent report out of Stanford University in California, which started issuing drivers licenses for undocumented residents in 2015, examined the public safety aspect of the law. With 600,000 new licensed drivers who were undocumented in 2015, hit-and-run accidents decreased significantly, by 4,000, from the year before.
According to a report by the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, more than 752,000 undocumented immigrants would be eligible for drivers licenses in New York State, and of that number, roughly 265,000 would apply. Taxes and fees could assist the annual economy in counties and the state by $57 million, the report showed.
The Westchester villages of Mamaroneck, Ossining and Port Chester issued resolutions in support of the State Assembly bill earlier this year. So did Ithaca, Hudson and Irvington.
We think that people should be able to drive so that they can be productive members of the community, as well as being properly licensed and insured, said Nancy Seligson, the Mamaroneck town supervisor.
Recently, Alberto, a 32-year-old Mexican man living in Ulster County for the last 11 years, was on his way to visit his sick mother-in-law in Florida when a police officer pulled his car over. His wife had been breast-feeding their infant while the car was moving. That was illegal.
Alberto, who declined to give his last name because of his immigration status, said in a recent interview that he was arrested that night in Georgia. His car was impounded because he had no license to drive it. He was able to get the car back and plead to lesser charges, he said, but those charges have not yet been reduced. He could still face deportation.
Back in New York, he continues to drive, always looking over his shoulder. I have to be perfect, he said.
An earlier version of this article misstated where a recently arrested 32-year-old driver lived. He lives in Ulster County, not Westchester.
Sandra E. Garcia contributed reporting.
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Driving While Undocumented, and Facing the Risks - New York Times