On Feb. 8, the Sun Journal ran a brief news article about L.D. 501. The legislation was supposed to make it more difficult for illegal aliens to get Maine driver’s licenses. It passed both houses of the Legislature without debate and will be signed into law by Gov. Baldacci.
As originally written, the bill was good but was amended by the Transportation Committee of the Legislature to the point where it does virtually nothing. The danger is that the politicians can now claim that they have “fixed” the problem.
All the bill does is to prevent the Bureau of Motor Vehicles from accepting three specific types of expired documents. The BMV still has to accept a whole bunch of other easy-to-fake, unverifiable types of documents. The BMV will still be required to issue four-year driver licenses to visiting aliens, even if their visits are expiring soon.
The bottom line: After the governor signs the bill, Maine will still be one of only eight states that knowingly issues driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.
John H. Frecker, Baileyville
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.