Paper Chase

[December 19th, 2007]

With less than seven weeks until new driver’s license rules take effect in Oregon, crowds are descending on the Mexican Consulate in downtown Portland to get ID cards that let them get licenses under the more favorable, existing regulations.

This race was all set in motion by Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s signing an executive order Nov. 16 establishing the new rules for the state Driver and Motor Vehicles Division. Those new rules are tentatively set to change Feb. 4.

Until then, undocumented immigrants in Oregon can still use Mexican identification cards to get their driver’s licenses at the Oregon DMV. Those cards are available only from the Mexican Consulate.

After the new rules take effect, non-citizens without temporary visas or “green cards” won’t be allowed to use those ID cards in place of Social Security numbers to apply for Oregon driver’s licenses.

The window of opportunity between now and Feb. 4 is important because driver’s licenses in Oregon are valid for eight years.

To foes of illegal immigration, that opening is an outrage.

“We don’t want the next 9/11 terrorists to be carrying Oregon licenses,” says Jim Ludwick, president of the anti-illegal immigrant group Oregonians for Immigration Reform. “I don’t understand why things take so long when they shouldn’t.”

But to supporters of foreign workers and families caught in the crosshairs of this latest get-tough-on-immigrants initiative, the gap is not a security breach at all. It’s a public policy nightmare. Three months isn’t much time to educate people about the new rules. And the results could hurt all Oregonians, not just the 60,000 to 70,000 undocumented immigrants in the state, immigrant advocates say.

“You’re taking away the government’s ability to know people are who they say they are,” says Aeryca Steinbauer, coordinator for CAUSA, a pro-immigrant rights group.

Neither the Mexican Consulate nor the Oregon Department of Transportation could say for sure to what degree the new rules have intensified demand for driver’s licenses among those who won’t be eligible for them next year.

But Sergio Hayakawa, a representative for the Mexican Consulate in Portland, the only such office in the state, linked the crowds at the consulate to the impending rule changes.

While he couldn’t quantify how many applicants were prompted by Kulongoski’s order, it was clear the new rules were on the minds of many Mexican citizens standing outside the consulate Monday morning.

Some had waited weeks, if not months, for their appointments to get Mexican identification cards at the consulate. They and their family members were aware, and grateful, that their applications for Oregon driver’s licenses would be processed just under the wire.

All were pessimistic about the effects of the new rules.

“Hispanic people are not going to leave,” says Cameron Castrejon, who was at the consulate with a relative who was applying for a Mexican ID card. “They’re just going to drive without licenses. It’s going to make things worse.”

Kulongoski issued his executive order in the belief that Oregon’s rules were lax and had created a safe haven for non-residents who wanted identification cards but didn’t live in Oregon.

The governor has said he supports possible legislation that would grant undocumented immigrants driving privileges, but his executive order does not, on its own, advance that cause.

“If I could say anything to the governor, I would say, ‘Please don’t take away driver’s licenses,’” said Jose, a self-described lawful resident. He refused to give his last name because he was with his nephew who is not in this country legally.

Others speculated the change would cause some undocumented immigrants in Oregon to move to Washington rather than compel them to return to Mexico.

“We didn’t come to do bad things,” said another man named Jose, who already had his license but was at the consulate with a friend getting hers. “We came to do positive things—to work.”