MD Senate Passes Bill to Allow Undocumented Immigrants to Get Driver's Licenses

There are about 300,000 undocumented immigrants in Maryland

The Maryland State Senate moved yesterday to make permanent a program under which undocumented immigrants can get driver's licenses, reports the Baltimore Sun.

Maryland currently has a two-tiered system for granting driver's licenses: after new federal security standards were mandated for licenses, the state gave out licenses to residents without requiring that they prove that they're in the country legally. Those 95,000 licenses, which could not be used for an federal purposes (like airport security), expire in 2015. Under the legislation passed this week, the licenses would be available on a permanent basis.