Spitzer backtracks on licenses

Illegal immigrants will still be able to apply for a driver’s license, but under Governor Eliot Spitzer’s new plan, those licenses will no longer serve as identification for boarding an aircraft or meet other federal regulations.
Spitzer recently announced a revised proposal, a step back from the plan he trumpeted for more than a month, which was endorsed by the Federal Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Michael Chertoff, putting the state on a path to a federal REAL ID program and creating a three-tiered system for licenses for New Yorkers.
The three tiers include an “Enhanced Driver’s License” for crossing the New York-Canadian border, a federally-approved license to fly on planes and a New York State license for driving and identification purposes.
“The comprehensive plan we have developed makes our state more secure by bringing more people into the system and provides the greatest number of people with the greatest amount of security possible,” Spitzer said in a statement. “As governor, that is my number one priority.”
However, Republican State Senator Serphin Maltese, who has criticized Spitzer’s plan to give licenses to illegal immigrants from the beginning, said that his new proposal does nothing to change his mind and believes it will go nowhere.
“The fact is this is a half-baked idea,” Maltese said. “It’s not well thought out. I am amazed he got any elected official to stand by him. I think the governor should just take a step back and indicate that it is not a good idea.”
Meanwhile, immigrant groups throughout the city are blasting Spitzer for backtracking on his original plan, which he defended for more than a month, saying that this plan is unfair to immigrants.
“Locally, supporting REAL ID means stigmatizing up to a million immigrants with licenses that are marked with ‘Scarlet Letters,’ making them vulnerable to racial profiling, discrimination and possibly deportation,” said Chung-Wha Hong, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC).
One day after Spitzer announced his new plan, the NYIC, along with other immigrant groups throughout the city, picketed in front of Spitzer’s office saying it would redouble efforts to make licenses available to all New Yorkers, without limits.
Maltese said Spitzer’s flip-flop has infuriated his supporters and only reinforces the idea that the governor is not communicating with other members of the legislature in order to get things accomplished.
“We really can’t feel too bad that he doesn’t contact us because he speaks only to God,” Maltese quipped.