On Monday, hundreds of illegal aliens from all over New York City arrived at the DMV offices to stand in line for hours to take advantage of the state’s new law authorizing driver’s licenses for people who should not be in this country to begin with. While it was an occasion of great celebration for activists who want to erase the lines between “undocumented” and “documented” Americans, it caused us to wonder why the hell Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn’t present at every office? Seems like it was a hell of an opportunity to kickstart deportations.
“Lawmakers in June made New York the 13th state to authorize licenses for drivers without legal immigration status. New Jersey lawmakers passed a similar bill Monday,” reports the AP. “An estimated 265,000 immigrants without legal documents are expected to get driver’s licenses within three years, more than half of them in New York City, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute.”
How…terrific.
“This legislation is in the best interest of the entire state of New York,” said one of the bill’s sponsors, Assemblyman Marcos Crespo (D-Bronx). “It is more beneficial to communities outside the City of New York — where transportation is fully accessible in our neighborhoods — as opposed to communities on Long Island and in upstate. There are clear economic gains for the state of New York, there are great revenues coming to our rural communities.”
Oh, well, if there are clear economic gains for the government then by all means, what were you waiting for?
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security criticized the scene in New York.
“This will protect criminals at the expense of the safety and security of law-abiding New York residents,” he said in a statement. “Besides giving drivers licenses to hundreds of thousands of people who broke our laws and have come to our country illegally, the New York law also blocks DHS law enforcement officers who investigate crimes like child exploitation, human trafficking, terrorism, the targeting of gang members, sex offenders, and drug smuggling, from accessing important public records.”
Which brings us back to our first notion: Where was ICE? You guys knew this day was coming, so why not make your presence known? Even if you wanted to avoid the inevitable media backlash from mass arrests, you could at least sit there in your cars and jackets and show these illegal aliens that the rule of law still exists in this country (despite everything New York Democrats are doing to undermine it). That might have been worth it.
Instead…you just ignored it, as if it doesn’t matter. A statement against it doesn’t mean much in that context.
