Rabbi Dan Moskovitz
Rabbi Donald Goor
Rabbi Karen Bender
"One Bill" Gil Cedillo
Chief Wm. Bratton
TEMPLE JUDEA RABBIS INGRATIATE WITH SENATOR
"ONE BILL" GIL CEDILLO AND LAPD CHIEF BRATTON
TO REWARD ILLEGAL ALIENS WITH DRIVER LICENSES
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT
AWARDING DRIVER LICENSES TO ILLEGAL ALIENS
Q: LAPD Chief Bratton says that if illegal aliens have licenses, they will buy insurance and won't have to flee the scene of accidents in which they are involved?
A: If you believe that once illegal aliens have driver licenses that they will run out and buy car insurance, then I want to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.
Q: Why not allow illegal aliens to have driver licenses if they're going to drive anyway?
A: Because then the message is sent that if you break the law, California will change the law. It's like Chief Bratton saying "whenever you don't like a law, violate it and we'll change it for you.
Q: Why not allow Illegal aliens to have driver licenses so that they can get to work?
A: Our federal laws prohibit Illegal aliens from working in the U.S. in the first place. Giving them licenses legitimizes their illegal presence in the U.S. and sends the message that we welcome law breakers.
Q: Yeah, we know they are in the U.S. illegally, but why not give them a break?
A: Because if you make an exception for those already illegally in the U.S., the news travels fast to thousands of others in Mexico and other third world countries that it is legal to be illegal in California. Millions more will violate our immigration laws to get on the license bandwagon.
Q: Won't illegal aliens have to buy insurance in order to get driver licenses?
A: No. Persons taking the driver test at the DMV must prove that the car they are using to take the test is insured, but California does not require that you own a car in order to obtain a driver license. As such, no proof of insurance is required for a car you don't own.
Q: But won't illegal aliens have to show proof of insurance when they register their cars?
A: Insurance companies won't share their customer base information with each other let alone with the DMV. The DMV has no way to verify a false proof of insurance slip easily obtained in the MacArthur Park area of L.A., or generated on a home computer.
Q: But if there is a required background check for illegal aliens including fingerprinting, won't it take the security risk out of awarding them driver licenses?
A: It is an oxymoronic idea to do a criminal background check on someone who has already broken U.S. immigration law. Moreover, there is no way to get any criminal background information on someone who may have illegally arrived to the U.S. three weeks ago. It is noteworthy, that after 9/11, a postmortem background check of all of the 19 terrorists who all had valid driver licenses, revealed that they did NOT have any criminal record. This is not surprising, as there was no criminal history on any of them in the U.S.
Q: But couldn't the DMV put some kind of mark or notation on the license so that it couldn't be used to board aircraft?
A: Rabbis Goor and Bender agree with Rabbi Moskovitz when he says "It will be used by some persons to treat the undocumented with scorn and ethnic discrimination" making the absurd analogy of the Jewish experience in being singled out during the Holocaust. Perhaps the Rabbis would like to do away with passports and green cards for LEGAL immigrants for the same reason.
Q: But if there was a notation on the license, wouldn't they be subject to being turned over to the Immigration authorities for deportation?
A: Yes. Fear of deportation SHOULD BE an intended deterrence to discourage illegal aliens from illegally entering the U.S. in the first place. But of course, those who fear such deportation could alleviate that fear by taking the bus to work like millions of citizens do.
Q: If immigrants are identified as being illegal aliens, won't that cause the breakup of their families if they are deported?
A: The vast majority of illegal alien men who enter the U.S. illegally, do so leaving their families behind in their home country. Deporting them, will unite them with their families.
Q: What if they already have a family in California and they are deported. Won't that breakup their families?
A: Family members can leave with their deported heads-of-household to stay united.
Q: Why would it hurt to give people who are just trying to make a living to support their families, driver licenses?
A: It is a broad belief that "all" illegal aliens are just trying to make a living to support their families. Just as we have in our American society, there are those illegal aliens who are criminals and deadbeat dads.
Q: Couldn't we just deport deadbeat dads?
A: Good question. In 1994, California passed legislation requiring that all driver license applicants provide their social security numbers so that deadbeat dads could be tracked down and forced to pay child support through wage garnishment. Providing driver licenses to illegal aliens who don't have valid social security numbers and whom California knows nothing about, virtually hands foreign deadbeat dads a new identity that clears them of their responsibility to the families they abandoned.
Q: Most illegal aliens are hard working, honest people. Why punish the whole lot on account of a few bad apples?
A: Yes, it's true that the vast majority of illegal aliens are not a security threat, but as we learned from 9-11, it just took 19 bad Islamic apples to murder 3,000 Americans.
Q: Come on, illegal aliens from south of our border can't be compared to Islamic terrorists, can they?
A: We better not compare immigrants from one another -- that would be profiling. And terrorists know that. Terrorists who are smart enough to learn to fly airliners into high rise buildings, are certainly smart enough to disguise themselves as Hispanic illegal aliens and obtain driver licenses.
Q: Why not allow just those "good" illegal aliens who are hard working, honest, and looking for a better life have driver licenses?
A: Because there is no way to know the good illegal aliens from the bad ones. The 38,748 illegal alien inmates (23% of the jailhouse population) in Sheriff Baca's jail, most who obtained valid California driver licenses before a social security number was required, are not "good" illegal aliens. Moreover, if California grants licenses to illegal aliens from Mexico, then soon, illegal aliens of other nationalities will sue for their "right" to also have licenses
