Some of the time, at least. Other times, it doesn’t matter how much harp music is going on; there will still be those that want to turn the other way and ignore the elephant in the room.
What has me all in knots this morning? We’re going to re-visit one of the topics that raises my blood pressure: giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens in New Mexico. You may remember some of my other thoughts here and here.
Part of my ranting involved the abuse of issuing NM driver’s licenses. This, folks, goes beyond issuing licenses to document illegal aliens.
August of 2011 brought a bust on a Chinese crime ring of folks obtaining NM driver’s licenses fraudulently. The count that time was 62 illegal licenses obtained.
With February 2011 came the arrest of 5 more people, one on his way to India via O’Hare International in Chicago.
It’s no surprise that there’s been another arrest, given the new governor’s quest to deal with this issue and show the abuse that is no doubt rampant.
“Although investigators identified 54 cases for prosecution purposes, the ring is accused of fraudulently obtaining hundreds of New Mexico driver’s licenses for illegal foreign nationals living outside the State.”
The potential for this ring seemed to be particularly large, since this group was making $30,000 a month on fraudulent driver’s licenses.
There are, however, more stunning numbers.
“About 92,000 foreign national licenses have been issued in New Mexico since 2003. Out of those, only 16,000 license holders filed a return this tax season, Padilla said.
“Where are the rest of them? It appears they’re not in New Mexico, as is evident by this ring,” she said.”
Gee, ya think? We finally have a governor who is trying to DO something about this issue, and even though there is a majority of actual PEOPLE in NM who want this gone, the legislature can’t seem to vote to get this law undone.
More detail about this latest crime ring is found here.
“According to the attached criminal complaint, Collazo-Medrano fraudulently used eight different addresses – four in Clovis and four in Portales – to establish residential requirements for dozens of foreign nationals between October 2009 and December 2011. Investigators have been able to establish 54 fraud cases involving Collazo-Medrano, so far, as their investigation continues.”
Still up in the air is what’s going to happen in January 2013. Why is this date such a big deal?
That’s the date when the postponed Real ID Act goes into effect. When that happens, those of us with NM or Washington driver’s licenses won’t be able to use them as our identification for flying domestically because they aren’t issued to just US citizens.
Yep. That means we’ll have to get passports. I wonder if the government is going to offer us all free passports. I know it sure would help me, since I have a family of 6. Prices today tell me it’s going to cost at least $855. Ya, I have that spare change floating around in my couch. 
{snort} At this point, I haven’t seen anything that gives another solution.
It’s also no surprise then, that there’s a run on getting fraudulent licenses right now, because time is running out. Interestingly, an article about this topic on a judicial watchdog site says,
“The Real ID Act would kill those little deals. Under the measure a newly created federal database will link all licensing data that must be checked before states issue new cards. Residents of states that don’t comply with the law will be greatly inconvenienced because their driver’s licenses will not be accepted as proof of identification at airports, federal buildings or when applying for any sort of federal benefits.”
And then on the side bar, there are links to other articles, like New Mexico Won’t Stop Giving Illegal Aliens Driver’s Licenses and Illegal Immigrants Fight To Keep Driver’s License.
Without getting tangled up in the debate of whether or not the Real ID Act should even be in place, I will say that it’s a load of crap that I, a private US citizen, should have to fork out nearly $1,000 just to be able to fly domestically because the idiot legislatures in this state want to give licenses to criminals.
{/rant} 
