Not all states in the United States issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants: Texas is not one of them.
Photo: Peperzak Bass / Unsplash
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In the United States, licenses are a privilege that not all states agree that undocumented immigrants have.
The privilege of receiving a driver’s license without the need to prove legal presence in the United States was first granted to undocumented immigrants in 1993.. In fact, currently only 16 states in the country offer driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.
These states issue a driver’s license if the applicant provides certain documentationsuch as a foreign birth certificate, foreign passport or consular card, and evidence of current residence in the state.
– California
– Colorado
– Connecticut
– Delaware
– Hawaii
– Illinois
– Maryland
– Nevada
– New Jersey
– New Mexico
– New York
– Oregon
– Utah
– Vermont
– Virginia
– Washington
Washington it was the first state to allow undocumented immigrants to receive driver’s licenses, in 1993; followed by New Mexico y Utahin 2003 and 2005, respectively, then by Illinois in 2013; Colorado, Maryland, Nevada, Vermont and the D.C. similar initiatives were approved in 2014; and finally followed them California, Connecticut, Delaware y Hawaii in the past four years.
This is thanks to the fact that they managed to pass legislation in favor of licenses for undocumented immigrants, which today we can say that granting a driver’s license to an undocumented immigrant improves highway safety and boosts a state’s economy, according to studies. Unlike other countries, in the United States every driver who receives his driver’s license can use it as his official identification. Namely, a license is at the same time an identity documentexcluding those licenses that are assigned to undocumented immigrants or that have the prefix Not Valid for Identification.
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