In the first six months of 2015, of the 759,000 original driver licenses issued in the state, more than half – 397,000 – were AB-60 licenses.
Four out of ten California drivers’ licenses issued in 2015 went to immigrants who were in the US illegally, under a new and controversial state law. The time, effort and expense required by the program have got some citizens grumbling.
Assembly Bill 60, which was adopted in 2013 and came into effect last January, granted the right to acquire a driver’s license in California to people living in the state illegally. Out of the 1.4 million total licenses in 2015, an estimated 605,000 had been issued to undocumented immigrants under the AB-60 program, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
In the first six months of 2015, of the 759,000 original driver licenses issued in the state, more than half – 397,000 – were AB-60 licenses, the DMV said in July.
“We believe that this new law increases safety on California roads by putting licensed drivers behind the steering wheel," California DMV spokesman Artemio Armenta said.A total of 830,000 undocumented immigrants applied for licenses, putting the acceptance rate at around 73 percent.
The program is expected to cost the state $141 million over a period of three years, according to the Orange County Register.
Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law in 2013, as part of a trio of immigration reform measures that included the removal of the word “alien” from California’s labor code as a term describing illegal immigrants. Among other things, the new laws will also allow noncitizen high school students to serve as poll workers in elections.
Until the 1990s, states did not explicitly restrict driver’s licenses to legal residents. The push for the bill came from state leaders and law enforcement officials arguing that roads would be safer with more licensed drivers.
https://www.rt.com/usa/331781-california-illegal-immigrants-license/
