Nevada Driver Authorization Cards Off and Running; California Braces for 2015 Deluge of Applicants

Bureaucrats at California’s Department of Motor Vehicles are drafting the rules and regulations that, beginning in 2015, will allow as many as 1.4 million illegal immigrant drivers on the road during the next three years. They might want to cast a leery eye toward the chaos in neighboring Nevada.

Effective January 1, Nevada made driver authorization cards available to illegal immigrants. According to one story, the Las Vegas DMV became so crowded that officials had to stop giving the written test which many applicants, because of their limited English, failed. Approximately 75 percent failed to answer the necessary 40 of 50 questions.  ["Most Fail Test for Nevada for Nevada Driver Privilege Card", Associated Press, January 5, 2014]

Lines formed before dawn and prompted a reporter to comment that DMV was more jammed than Black Friday at the mall. Eventually, about 60,000 are expected to apply. Local legislators who support Nevada’s SB 303 pulled out all the usual half truths — that the illegal immigrants are already driving and sanctioning them by granting licenses will ensure that drivers know the rules of the road. And by the way, not to worry, they’ll buy insurance. They may buy insurance to qualify, but whether they’ll keep it is a separate question.  ["Thousands of Immigrants Fill Nevada DMV Offices to Get New Driving Cards", by Tom Ragan, Las Vegas Review-Journal, January 2, 2013]

Granting illegal immigrants licenses, driving permits and other entitlements begets more illegal immigration. Aliens who may live in a state that doesn’t permit them to drive legally might consider moving to the growing number of states like California and Nevada that do. More illegal immigration and its corresponding increase in population and social service-dependent residents should be the last thing Governors Jerry Brown and Brian Sandoval would want. 

Based on Census Bureau statistics, the Federation for American Immigration Reform calculates that Nevada’s estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants costs Nevada about $1.2 billion annually and California’s 2.4 million, $21. 8 billion. Those are tidy sums that should be put to use enhancing citizens’ lives.