If Governor Patrick doesn’t use his veto power in the next few day, Massachusetts will turn yet one more state agency into an arm of immigration enforcement by instituting “legal residency” checks at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
In the Boston Globe’s opinion blog “The Podium,” Eva Millona, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, argued that this is will do nothing to make Massachusetts roads safer:
“Undocumented immigrants won’t “self-deport” because of this provision,” she writes. “They’ll just shrink deeper into the shadows, and we’ll spend more state resources targeting them instead of focusing on real criminals. If we really wanted to make Massachusetts a safer place to drive we should (1) allow undocumented immigrants the ability to apply for driver’s licenses, just like every other state resident at least 16 years of age, and (2) crack down on drunk driving.”
Read the whole Boston Globe post here:
MIRA also asks people to take action on this issue by contacting their state legislators. See the action page here:
