Earlier this month, a new California State Assembly Bill benefiting undocumented immigrants came into effect, though the bill is only a partial remedy to one of the many issues surrounding immigration in the state.
Entitled AB 353, the bill restricts police officers from impounding vehicles for a 30-day minimum as long as the only offense is driving without a license and a licensed driver can claim the vehicle.
Authored by State Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, AB 353 is an amendment to the existing vehicle code and will standardize procedures around the state.
Assemblyman Michael Allen, D-Santa Rosa, introduced the bill with Cedillo.
“Checkpoints in some communities have veered off course from the intended purpose, placing more emphasis on impounding the vehicles of sober, unlicensed drivers than on removing the most dangerous drivers from our roads,” commented Allen in August last year.
Many of those sober drivers are undocumented immigrants who must rely on this type of transportation to work. The bill will effectively improve their lives by reducing the risk of impoundment and the subsequent associated fees.
At the same time, opponents have criticized the bill for limiting the ability of police officers to effectively combat traffic related fatalities.
According to a report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in 2011, unlicensed drivers were 2.4 times more likely to have an illegal blood alcohol concentration level in a fatal crash than drivers with no alcohol in their system and were 9.4 times more likely to flee the scene of the crime.
While the bill features some worthwhile changes to the existing vehicle code, it may also give rise to more incidents involving unlicensed drivers by reducing their disincentive to drive.
The best solution would be to allow for undocumented immigrants to lawfully obtain a driver’s license, reducing exploitation at DUI checkpoints and avoiding the potential negative costs of AB 353.
The state has already turned down a proposal from Cedillo in 2009, entitled SB 60, that would allow for undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. A representative of Cedillo’s office estimated that there were approximately 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in California, all of which could potentially benefit from a change in the law.
According to Cedillo, California’s agricultural sector relies heavily on immigrants.
With our economy intrinsically tied to immigrant workers, they are not going anywhere and we must mitigate their circumstances here.
It may seem implausible to have government interaction with undocumented immigrants, but it is already being done in New Mexico, Utah and Washington as well as in California until 1993, according to The Associated Press.
By allowing AB 353 to pass and denying the bill that would allow the undocumented to obtain driver’s licenses, the State of California is just playing immigration politics. In a certain sense, AB 353 is effectively a watered down version of SB 60 with more potential negative consequences for our safety.
Rather than creating judicial loopholes to mitigate the lives of immigrants, we must create legislation that actively addresses their presence. It is folly to address the concerns of an entire community through the implicit consequences of public policies that in reality do not express the sentiments of a democracy.
