One Million Illegal Aliens on the Road in 2016?
A quarter of U.S. states will dole out driver’s licenses to illegal aliens this new year. Delaware and Hawaii were added to the list of states that will grant driver’s licenses to illegal aliens in 2016, joining the illegal alien-friendly jurisdictions of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.
According to an August 2015 Pew Report, released prior the addition of Delaware and Hawaii, nearly 37 percent of illegal aliens live in a jurisdiction where they may obtain a license. Michelle Waslin, manager of Immigration and the States for Pew, estimated that as of the fall of 2015, the number of illegal alien drivers in the U.S. totaled roughly 900,000.
Unfortunately, this already high figure has already likely been surpassed given the recent revelation this past week that the State of California gave driver’s licenses to roughly 605,000 illegal aliens in 2015. The California DMV began handing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens January 2, 2015, when Assembly Bill 60, took effect. An estimated 830,000 illegal aliens have sought driver’s licenses under the legislation thus far, and illegal aliens accounted for slightly less than half of all the new non-commercial licenses – about 1.4 million – issued by the DMV in 2015.
To accommodate the influx in driver’s license applicants, the California government hired roughly 1,000 additional DMV workers, extended office hours, and created several new locations. Nonetheless, the law continues to put illegal aliens ahead of U.S. citizens. For instance, the state requires all drivers over the age of 70 to go to the DMV in-person to renew a driver’s licenses, making California’s elderly compete in long lines with illegal aliens at the DMV.
“It certainly overloads the system,” said Ann Coil, Santa Ana Tea Party Patriots coordinator. “And, again, we’re giving priority to people who aren’t citizens,” she added. “There is concern in this country, and it’s reflected in this election, that there’s more compassion for people who are not citizens than those who are.”