State Appeals Court says New York DMV can deny licenses to illegal aliens

July 5, 2006

A state appeals has ruled that the New York Department of Motor Vehicles can require immigrants to prove they are in this country legally before allowing them to have driver's licenses. The 5-0 ruling by the Appellate Division in Manhattan reversed a decision by Justice Karen S. Smith, who ordered the DMV last year to stop denying driver's licenses to immigrants who didn't have Social Security numbers or proof that they were legal.

In dismissing the illegal immigrants' complaint, the appeals court said Smith had erred in barring the identity procedures the DMV Commissioner had put in place, saying they were 'within his authority and enforceable.'

The appeals court noted cases in which one Social Security number was used to get licenses for 57 people and another in which one taxi driver used two numbers to get two licenses — one for insurance and the other for traffic tickets.

Foster Maer, a lawyer for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented the plaintiffs, said his group may appeal.

The DMV began lifting the licenses of illegal immigrants in 2004, a move that was estimated to cost as many as 300,000 people their driving privileges.

The plaintiffs in the case had argued that their constitutional rights were being violated. State officials defended the identity procedures as an effort to combat fraud and terrorism.