The D.C. Council postponed voting on a bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for local driver’s licenses on Tuesday, Oct. 15. Mayor Vincent Gray (D) first proposed the Drivers Safety Amendment Act last May. “This legislation is the right thing to do for our undocumented residents and our entire community,” Gray wrote in a press release.
The D.C. Council now plans to vote on the bill Nov. 5.
If passed, the bill will amend past legislation that requires the label “not valid for federal purposes” on the licenses of all undocumented immigrants. Connecticut, Vermont, Maryland, Illinois, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, and California now allow licensing of undocumented immigrant drivers.
Tuesday’s decision to postpone voting is part of an extended series of deferrals. The D.C. Council was supposed to vote on the bill on Oct. 1. According to Councilwoman Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), head of the transportation and environment committee, the D.C. Council still needs to resolve the details of the bill.
In response to Mayor Gray’s proposal, activists in D.C. and surrounding areas launched the “One City, One License” campaign, which advocates for establishing standard driver’s licenses to all applicants in the District, including undocumented immigrants.
The campaign has garnered significant support from the Hispanic community. Tamira Ramirez, one of the community organizers for the D.C. Immigrant Rights Coalition, has been heavily involved in the campaign’s efforts to get the word out about the bill.
“We’ve collected several phone numbers from petitions for all, and we have over 6,500 phone numbers that we’ve basically been calling petitioning to the D.C. Council to have one licensing individually over the weekend,” Ramirez said.
Georgetown students such as Tessa Pulaski (SFS’15), coordinator for the Day Laborer Exchange Program through the Kalmanovitz Initiative, learned about the campaign from the group D.C. Jobs with Justice.
“I think it’s a great campaign and a great way to push the D.C. Council to vote,” Pulaski said. “D.C. is a small enough place that campaigns [such as One License] are very effective and can easily target specific councilmembers.”
As a Georgetown student who has the opportunity to work closely with many undocumented residents, Pulaski can speak first-hand of the importance of the bill to these individuals.
“It’s hard to make this a political priority, but this bill will definitely affect a lot of the people that we work with in the Day Laborer Exchange Program,” Pulaski said. “They have to take public transportation to work from Maryland usually, and it takes a really long time to get to their jobs. I’ve talked to a lot of workers about it and they’ve said that the legislation would really benefit them.”
In addition to using driver’s licenses for transportation purposes, access to federal identification would allow undocumented immigrants to use basic services, such as housing resources or bank accounts.
Christopher Wager (SFS’17), a member of Hoyas for Immigrant Rights, is also involved in the Day Laborer Exchange Program.
“I talked to [a man named] Elmer last week who is from El Salvador. I asked him what could be done to improve his situation, and he said that if he were allowed to drive a car, it would make working [for private owners or contractors] so much easier,” Wager said.
Issuing of standard licenses for undocumented residents may prompt the federal government to designate D.C. residents’ drivers licenses as invalid for use at federal security checkpoints. Some advocates, however, have asserted this possible inconvenience is not a priority.
“I can understand that concern, but I think that the most important issue here is the human rights connotation that [the bill] has. Different licenses would lead to a lot of unneeded discrimination and create a concept of a second degree resident,” Wager said.
Despite a month’s delay, the coalition is going to continue lobbying. “We’ll be back next week to double check on individual council member’s votes,” Ramirez said.
