Legally Licensing Illegals

On this week's InterCHANGE, Joel McNally pointed out that some of the 9/11 terrorists had upwards of 30 drivers licenses. He doubted that all of those licenses were acquired via legal means and felt that was a good example of why AB69 (a bill requiring proof of US citizenship to attain a license) shouldn't be passed. Basically McNally is saying that there's no point in banning illegal immigrants from legally obtaining licenses since those that would use them for illegal purposes wouldn't go through legal channels to get them anyway.

This argument sounds familiar. It's kind of like what's often said in the debate over gun control.

Gun control proponents repeatedly claim that by banning gun ownership we will greatly reduce crime. Opponents to such measures are quick to remind them that guns used in the commission of crimes are acquired through illegal means, so laws to ban ownership won't stop the criminals for having them.

But while gun control advocates aspire to prevent law-biding citizens from practicing their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, advocates of AB69 hope to ban undocumented immigrants, people inherently non-law-biding by virtue of their entering the nation through illegal means, from having the privilege of driving a car.

(Yes, I said privilege. If you think driving is a right, you need to attend driver's education again, where it's beaten into students heads that driving is a privilege, not a right.)

I won't deny there are issues with our immigration policies. But there is definitely a problem when some seem to be working so hard to give privileges to those who've already broken the law while at the same time attempting to deny rights to those who follow it.

And interesting that they're usually the same people.