unintended consequences: Davis recall leads to US internal passports

Major Variola (ret.) mv at cdc.gov
Wed Sep 10 09:38:40 PDT 2003


Licenses as IDs at airports questioned

WASHINGTON  Federal officials and lawmakers raised serious concerns
Tuesday about the continued use of driver's licenses at airports and
U.S. borders in light of California's new law allowing illegal
immigrants to obtain the widely accepted means of identification.

"If driver's licenses are given to people who are illegally in the
country, then that puts extra burdens and difficulties on our inspectors
at the border," Hutchinson said. "If you don't have integrity in the
driver's licenses that are issued, then it really undermines the whole
premise of allowing U.S. citizens to travel abroad and come back with
limited proof of U.S. citizenship, without a passport."

The wisdom of using driver's licenses for identification was also
questioned Tuesday in a congressional watchdog report that found that
fraudulent licenses are passing muster at airports, border crossings and
motor-vehicle offices. The full report by the General Accounting Office
has been classified for security reasons. But in public testimony
prepared for the Senate Finance Committee, Robert Cramer, director of
GAO's office of special investigations, warned about relying on driver's
licenses for identification.

Davis had refused to sign such a law before, citing homeland security
concerns. His about-face was questioned by some as a move to garner
support in the Latino community.

excerpts from
http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=56388&section=NEWS&subsection=NEWS&year=2003&month=9&day=10





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