Driver's licenses for undocumented migrants can improve road safety: NPR

Four years after implementing a policy allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license, Connecticut has experienced a reduction in the number of hit-and-run collisions and a sharp decrease in the number of persons convicted of driving without a license.

More than 50,000 undocumented immigrants in the state have passed written exams, vision tests and driving tests to get a driver's license, injecting several million dollars into the Connecticut motor vehicle department .

The Connecticut experience could provide a roadmap for lawmakers from eight other states that are considering adopting similar laws to expand access to a driver's license.

Some Connecticut police officers remain skeptical about the fact that training and licensing undocumented immigrants is the only reason why 1,200 accidents with hit-and-run were committed in 2018 compared to 2016, but Charles Grasso, from the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center, said the policy was making a difference to both road safety and driver behavior.

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"The people who got licenses … [are] Trained right, so he made the roads safer, "said Grasso, a former police sergeant who works with the local police in connection with accident investigations.

Random collisions at the state level have dropped 9% between 2016 and 2018.

In the 10 Connecticut cities with the highest concentrations of Drive Only permits issued to undocumented immigrants, hit-and-run collisions dropped by 15% over the same period, according to state data obtained by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. The state has not compiled the data on random collisions before 2015.

Mr. Grasso stated that undocumented immigrant drivers are confident that they will not be charged with driving without a license and are less likely to flee during an accident.

"From what I know, permits keep people on the scene because they know they have a driver's license now," he said.

In addition to Connecticut, 11 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico allow undocumented immigrants to drive legally.

Afraid to be arrested

Sebastian, a 30-year-old Guatemalan living in New Haven, Connecticut, took advantage of the Connecticut law. We do not use his full name because of his immigrant status.

"Before having the license, I was scared because sometimes [I’d] see a soldier and think, "I hope he does not attract me." But after … I have a driver's license, I feel safe like Americans. They drive without worries, "he said.

That means about 80 kilometers a day of worry-free driving for this construction worker who is expecting the birth of his first child in a few months.

The law allowing Sebastian and undocumented immigrants like him to drive legally entered into force in 2015, creating a permit bearing the letters "DO" or "Drive Only". Licensees may not use the document to pass the airport security or appear on the voters lists. Sebastian had to prove his home in Connecticut, pass a series of tests and insure his car.

Prior to 2015, he was driving without a license for about six years, risking arrest by the police, fined and eventually directed to the federal immigration system and deported.

Sebastian and other immigrants surveyed said that with the new licenses, they feared much less that a roadside check would drive them into the hands of federal immigration authorities.

Licenses help maintain order

In the capital Hartford, where delusional collisions have dropped by more than 20% since 2016, Police Lieutenant Paul Cicero is skeptical about the link between Drive Only permits and improved road safety, saying that A trend over three years does not have enough time to make a judgment. There are approximately 2,000 newly registered and licensed undocumented immigrant drivers in the city, but Cicero has relied on traffic cameras and improved street surveillance to justify fewer collisions.

But Cicero said that licenses help maintain order, which allows agents to save time when publishing routine citations.

"It happened that we passed someone without an identity card and forced an officer to leave the road for one, two or three hours," Cicero said. "It usually spoils the day in jail, getting fingerprints, being photographed and waiting for fingerprints to come in. So, these" Drive Only "permits can be very beneficial to the police and the community."

The increase in state revenue is an added advantage. The Connecticut Automotive Department has raised $ 7.5 million in license fees over four years, offset by $ 300,000 to accelerate the new licensing program.

Small businesses offering Spanish courses, such as the Santo Driving School in Hartford, have held seats after law enforcement.

"This has increased a lot of customers – probably that year about a thousand more," said the owner, Sal Calafiore.

With thousands of new legal drivers on the road, Connecticut courts have found about 4,000 fewer people guilty of unlicensed driving in the last four years, according to Connecticut court data obtained by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting . This translates into a reduction of about one million dollars in fines imposed by state courts.

For undocumented immigrants like Luis, a landscaper living in New Haven, such fines were problematic.

"Sometimes we do not have money," he said. "Even myself, I have my family, my wife, my kids – it's too hard for me to pay you $ 500 fine."

Luis is relieved that this economic burden has now disappeared. He can now drive his kids to football tournaments in Boston and Baltimore.

Luis stated that Drive Only permits gave him and others undocumented a better chance of avoiding federal immigration authorities, but he feared that the license would make him from him a man marked – especially when he thought it might be an immigration and customs officer looking at him in return.

"You can give your license, [and] because they say "drive only", they know your status. So you can be arrested right away, "said Luis.

Similar concerns over minor traffic stops leading to deportation are part of efforts to fuel the efforts of eight state legislatures to expand access to driving licenses. Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Wisconsin are considering legislation to ensure that licensees are not discriminated against as undocumented immigrants.

Supporters marched in seven of these states on May 1st. More than half of the states that have debated these measures have divided their leaders – many Republicans in the ranks of a federal administration, it is very clear that it is important to want to emigrate undocumented migrants and not to render them no service.

Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who helped immigrants lobby for Connecticut law, said that common sense should persuade more states to do the same.

"Everyone will use our roads, we know it will happen," he said. "If your job is to protect the highways of Minnesota and you say," Does it help me to get tens of thousands of people out of the system or into the system? " inside the system? "- the answer is quite simple."

This piece comes from Center for New England Inquiry Reports.