October 29, 2007
During his campaign for Governor of New York State, Eliot Spitzer met with immigrant groups, including leaders of the Mexican community in the city (friends of mine were present) to ask for their full support and promising he would push for more rights and respect for immigrant communities. On September 21st Gov. Spitzer tried to fulfill part of his promise by presenting a new law to provide driving licenses to all applicants regardless of their immigration status. This has been done in many other states including Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. On September 24th, 2004 Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a law to provide drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants living in California.
The criticism to Governor Spitzer did not take long to come. Mayor Bloomberg (who some months before hold a day long conference with mayors of cities around the world on how to generate cooperation and governance with immigrant communities) spoke against the measure. Lou Dobbs could not miss the opportunity for his improvised and dramatic demagoguery.
It is interested that opponents have make the claims that undocumented migrants would be able to travel across borders with their new drivers license, even while it has become mandatory for everyone to use a passport to enter the U.S.
Another exaggerated claim has been that all these immigrants could vote only because they have a drivers’ license, if this is a real possibility it talks about problems with the voter registration system, which is independent from providing migrants with an official American ID.
Institutional Doorkeepers
Max Weber defines bureaucracy as the system in which government intermediaries and employees, bureaucrats, are to suspend all judgment on the personal characteristics of the applicant and to follow simple binary uniform guidelines. New sociological research (Cybelle Fox, Natalia Deeb-Sossa) points to how many government employees may act as doorkeepers and immigration enforcers in their differential everyday interaction with different publics. For example some social workers may provide different resources to different groups depending on their perceptions of the merits of each group.
Interestingly in the New York driver’s license controversy a group of county clerks and other bureaucrats openly spoke to the media about opposing the plan. Clerks went as far as stating they would report those who could not prove residency to local sheriffs. Kathleen Marchione, president of the New York State Association of County Clerks spoke about her opposition to issue licenses to “illegal immigrants”. Here we see again the framing of the issue as one of breaking the law by helping “illegal aliens.” This framing has convinced many that they are doing the right thing in opposing this law. Law enforcers are indeed put at odds with contradictory definitions of the “legal”, which most cause a cognitive dissonance that people like Dobbs and Giuliani are using for their personal benefit. On one side these public servants are required to apply a new state law mandated by the Governor to whom they respond directly, at the same time they see themselves as contravening a federal policy against regularizing undocumented migrants who entered the country outside of the official bureaucratic channels.
From the New York Times. Danny Hakim. Sunday, October 28th, 2007.
Given all the criticism he received for weeks in the rightwing media, Spitzer changed courser and proposed a set of different IDs with different requirements and labels: one open to all residents of the state; One for citizens that would comply with the Real ID Act, which aims to create a unified national ID; and one for people in up state New York, which could be used to cross back from Canada.
At the other side of the spectrum, Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition and Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU commented to the NYT that they and the immigrant community felt “betrayed” by the Governors reversal (Rivera 2007). Spitzer never thought it would be so hard to act on such a polarized issue.
Defeat
On November 13th, 2007 New York Governor Eliot Spitzer abandoned his plan to provide driver's licences to undocumented New York residents. “I am not willing to fight to the bitter end on something that will not ultimately be implemented,” said Governor Spitzer in a press conference (Hakim 2007b).
Backlash
At Democratic candidates’ debate in Philadelphia on October 30th, 2007, Senator Hillary Clinton was asked why he thought that Gov. Spitzer's plan to give driver's licences to undocumented immigrants made sense.
SEN. CLINTON gave a nuanced answer, "what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. We know in New York we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers. They are driving on our roads. The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds. It's probability. So what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum. I believe we need to get back to comprehensive immigration reform because no state, no matter how well-intentioned, can fill this gap. There needs to be federal action on immigration reform."
After the other candidates gave their opinions. Clinton came back and said, "I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it. And we have failed --
SEN. DODD: Wait a minute. No, no, no. You said yes, you thought it made sense to do it.
SEN. CLINTON: No, I didn't, Chris. But the point is, what are we going to do with all these illegal immigrants who are (driving ?)
SEN. DODD: Well, that's a legitimate issue. But driver's license goes too far, in my view.
SEN. CLINTON: Well, you may say that, but what is the identification if somebody runs into you today who is an undocumented worker --
...
SEN. CLINTON: Well, what Governor Spitzer has agreed to do is to have three different licenses; one that provides identification for actually going onto airplanes and other kinds of security issues, another which is an ordinary driver's license, and then a special card that identifies the people who would be on the road.(...)
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I just want to make sure what I heard. Do you, the New York Senator Hillary Clinton, support the New York governor's plan to give illegal immigrants a driver's license? You told the Nashua, New Hampshire, paper it made a lot of sense.
SEN. CLINTON: You know, Tim, this is where everybody plays gotcha. It makes a lot of sense. What is the governor supposed to do? He is dealing with a serious problem. We have failed, and George Bush has failed. Do I think this is the best thing for any governor to do? No. But do I understand the sense of real desperation, trying to get a handle on this? Remember, in New York we want to know who's in New York. We want people to come out of the shadows. He's making an honest effort to do it. We should have passed immigration reform."
And your position is?
After this flip-flopping the attacks have not stopped, calling her "soft on immigration" and not being congruent, wanting to position herself at both sides of the immigration debate. The big losers of this successful attacks against the Spitzer plan were not only the migrants who looked for something positive to normalize they daily life but also it has become more costly for well established politicians on the left to stand on the side of undocumented immigrants.
Links
Edds, Kimberly. 2004. No Driver's Licenses for Calif. Illegal Immigrants. The Washington Post. Friday, September 24, 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45651-2004Sep23.html
Hakim, Danny. 2007. Spitzer Tries New Tack on Immigrant Licenses. The New York Times. Sunday, October 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/nyregion/28spitzer.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print
Hakim, Danny.2007b. "Spitzer Dropping His Driver’s License Plan." The New York Times. November 14th, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/nyregion/14spitzer.html?ex=1352782800&en=114bf23204cb5c93&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Rivera, Ray. 2007. Governor Accused of Betraying Principles. The New York Times. Sunday, October 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/nyregion/28react.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print
Santora, Marc. 2007. "Immigration Is Fodder for Clinton Rivals." The New York Times. November 1, 2007
Debate Transcript. "The Yes, No and Maybe on Driver’s Licenses." The New York Times. November 1, 2007
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