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opinion editorials
Sunday, May 04, 2008
A Loophole To Drive Immigrants Through
Here’s a question for Taxation and Revenue Secretary Rick Homans: If the feds’ big immigration/ ID bust isn’t about New Mexico’s lax driver’s-license requirements, what is it about? Bringing green chile and corn dances to the undocumented masses?
Is that why eight illegal immigrants from Brazil allegedly forked over almost $3,000 each to their Russian-speaking tour guides and schlepped from Newark to Albuquerque to visit the local MVD?
That’s certainly not why the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been shadowing the suspects on visits to MVD. Cleber J. Da Silva, aka James Kulekhov, and Anastissiya Galiullina have been charged in federal court with illegally transporting Brazilian nationals from Newark, N.J., to New Mexico to get state driver’s licenses.
The feds now say they believe as many as 30 illegal immigrants have been brought here as part of the scheme to get New Mexico licenses.
So while Homans is right to single out the “very alert MVD employee who was trained to identify fraudulent source documents” and tipped off law enforcement, he’s missing the cause-and-effect big picture. Because his MVD clerk might never have had to tip off cops if New Mexico wasn’t one of only five states that don’t require proof of legal U.S. residency for a driver’s license.
Even the feds say New Mexico’s driver’s licenses are easily obtained with false documents. Heck, they watched one being issued to an illegal immigrant during recon on the Brazil-to-Albuquerque case, according to court documents.
While more states require proof a driver’s license applicant is in the United States legally — Oregon, Michigan and Maine are adding it — Gov. Bill Richardson has vocally supported allowing illegal immigrants to have licenses.
If New Mexico is going to stick with that plan, then it’s going to need a flock of eagle-eyed MVD clerks. The state just instituted new uber-secure licenses that, once issued, are ultra-high tech and virtually tamper-proof. A mere $34 gets you one that lasts eight years. And if that isn’t a reason to visit New Mexico via Newark. ...
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