Keeping Immigrants at Home

Two years ago, New York's DMV started denying license renewals to anyone without a social security card. Immigrants' rights groups complained that the Department of Motor Vehicles should worry about, say, motor vehicles, rather than the enforcement of immigration law, and sued. The New York Times reports:

Among those who sued the state are a 60-year-old licensed asbestos remover who worked in the World Trade Center cleanup, a teenage refugee from Albania, and the Irish father of an American-born infant who needs to be driven to medical treatment for her seizures.

Yesterday, a judge ordered a temporary halt to the denials. The AP report has state officials claiming the denials are necessary for "traffic safety," which is an interesting argument, since it implies that undocumented immigrants who pass a driving test are inherently worse at operating motor vehicles than the rest of the population.