The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“Massachusetts is home to about 200,000 unauthorized immigrants of driving age, and lawmakers finally appear ready to let them to do something nearly all of us take for granted: apply for a driver’s license. . . .
“It has never made sense to me that there should be such apprehension about letting unauthorized immigrants get a license to drive. No rational person thinks that residents who entered the country without a visa should be barred for that reason from applying for a debit card, signing up for Netflix, or getting a COVID vaccine. Why the endless furor over authorizing them to take a road test and obtain a driver’s license?
“Paving the way for illegal immigrants to acquire driver’s licenses simply provides another vehicle to promote their legitimacy,” fumed the Lowell Sun in a recent editorial.. But that makes no sense. A driver’s license doesn’t promote anything except public safety and better traffic enforcement. With or without a license, thousands of unauthorized foreigners have no choice but to drive. Like millions of their fellow Massachusetts residents, many of them need to get to work, drop off their kids at school, or shop for groceries.
“Making it possible for unauthorized immigrants to acquire a driver’s license isn’t going to add ‘legitimacy’ to their immigration status. It isn’t going to have any effect on their immigration status at all. What it will do is ensure that they can be identified and that they’ve passed a driving test. . . .
“Sixteen states, ranging from deep blue Connecticut to deep red Utah, have made it legal for unauthorized foreigners to apply for driver’s licenses. Massachusetts ought to become the 17th. Let the immigration debate continue unimpeded, while seeing to it that anyone driving in Massachusetts is licensed to do so.” –- What Does Immigration Status Have to Do with a Driver’s License? Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe. 2/16/22 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This writer claims it isn’t “rational” to deny driver’s licenses and other benefits to illegal aliens. Well, that depends on one’s beliefs about national sovereignty. If sovereignty, borders and citizenship don’t matter to you, then it’s rational not to distinguish between lawbreaking foreigners and law-abiding citizens. On the other hand, if you have any amount of patriotism—and most Americans do—it is most irrational to “legitimatize” the presence of illegal aliens in our country. The writer mocks the Lowell Sun for “fuming” about this, but the fuming is entirely appropriate—if you care about America as a sovereign country ruled by law.
We have chosen through our elected representatives to place limits on immigration, for the very rational reason that we don’t have the capacity to admit all the huddled masses of the world who would like to move here. If the laws we pass limiting immigration are to have any meaning, they must be enforced. This means making illegal aliens go home. About 11 million of them now live in the U.S. Rounding up and deporting that many with our relatively small number of immigration officers would be a difficult task. An accompanying strategy must be to make it as difficult as possible for illegal aliens to live here. This strategy will encourage them to go home on their own.
Granting driver’s licenses to illegal aliens makes it easier for illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. It sends them the message that they’re entitled to break our laws. The writer of the above article maintains that illegal aliens “have no choice but to drive.” Very well, but let them make that choice after they’ve returned to their home countries