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NEW
YORK—In a reversal of his campaign promises, Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D)
announced on Oct. 27 a new driver’s license just for “illegal” immigrants.
Spitzer earlier had promised a single license for all New York drivers.
The
new Spitzer plan is part of a deal made with the Bush administration.
It includes a three-tier licensing system that opponents say will keep
many of New York’s one million undocumented workers underground,
without a way to travel to jobs and worse.
“We
supported the governor’s original proposal, which was to have one
license for all New Yorkers. The governor’s actions are a huge
betrayal,” said Norman Eng of the N.Y. Immigration Coalition, an
organization of more than 200 immigrant groups. “This lesser license
will stigmatize immigrants carrying it, making them vulnerable to
racial profiling, discrimination, and possibly deportation,” Eng said.
Bhaihravi
Desai, executive director of the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance
(TWA), whose members are mostly South Asian immigrants, told Socialist
Action, “We are just as shocked by this betrayal as are other
immigration organizations. This will make immigrants more vulnerable.”
The
TWA conducted two brief strikes in September and October to protest a
city-backed scheme of taxi fleet bosses to require electronic tracking
devices in cabs. So far, the city’s billionaire mayor, Michael
Bloomberg, has not budged.
Spitzer
originally said his goal in making licenses available to “illegals” was
to reduce the number of uninsured drivers, not as a defense of
immigrant worker rights. Nevertheless, his first proposal met fierce
opposition from racist forces, especially among State Senate
Republicans and some Democrats. The proposal was vetoed in the state
Senate.
In
a capitulation to racist forces, the governor’s latest proposal
includes two versions of a N.Y. State license for U.S. citizens and
legal residents only. The first
type of “legals only” license would be acceptable ID on domestic
flights and at federal buildings. A second “legals only” license would
qualify for use at the Canadian border.
Another,
cheaper license would be just for “illegal” immigrants and would not
require a Social Security card. Advocates say that those holding these
licenses will be branded as “illegals.”
The
plan, negotiated with the office of Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff, will be in sync with new federal rules for so-called “secure”
state licenses, known as Real ID. The Real ID plan is a post 9/11
attempt to start-up a national ID system in 2008. Before 9/11, New York granted
licenses regardless of immigration status. Some states still do.
Spitzer
explained his deal with Bush by praising Real ID as a good way to
gather data on illegals, which will include a new high-tech application
procedure. Real ID was promoted
by the Bush administration and added to an Iraq War funding bill in
2005, which passed with Republican and Democratic Party votes.
The
American Civil Liberties Union and many others have denounced the Real
ID concept. The ACLU condemned the use of “motor vehicle bureaus to
enforce immigration,” the combining of state license data bases in violation
of their own state laws, and transforming drivers licenses into “de
facto national ID cards.”
So
far, 17 states have passed laws defying the measure, with possibly
others to follow. The ACLU called Spitzer’s decision a “stunning lack
of courage.”
New
York’s Democratic governor will be leading the way toward the first
large state’s implementation of Bush’s new ID rules—years before it
will be necessary in 2013. The move dovetails with a bipartisan attack
on immigrant workers that was at the heart of several bipartisan,
anti-immigrant “reform” bills before Congress earlier this year. So
far, ruling-class politicians have deadlocked on a compromise.
The
governor’s betrayal was so raw that even a key Spitzer ally, state
Senator Eric Schneiderman, whose upper-Manhattan constituency is mostly
immigrant, said, “He is helping Chertoff and the Bush administration
rescue a failed public policy that was about to go down in defeat.” A
vote on the governor’s measures is likely.
Eliot
Spitzer gained national attention as a crusader against corrupt Wall
Street practices as the state’s former attorney general. Yet, none of
the Wall Street crooks Spitzer caught cheating were made to admit to
any wrong doing and none spent a day in jail for stealing hundreds of millions.
One
of Spitzer’s first acts in 2007 as a new governor was to promote Judge
Theodore Jones to the State Appeals Court. The promotion was widely
understood as reward for harsh rulings made by Jones against Transport
Workers Union Local 100 for its 2005 New
York
City transit strike. Jones slammed the union with a $2.5 million fine,
suspended automatic union dues collection, and sent its president,
Roger Toussaint, to jail for several days. The decision was based on
New York’s Taylor Law, a bipartisan, anti-labor law, which prohibits
strikes by public workers.
Spitzer
is the son of a New York City real-estate mogul. Gov. Spitzer has
supported the racist death penalty, “roving” wire-taps for police, and
state aid for parochial schools. He is pro-Israel and supported a U.S.
invasion of Iraq before it actually happened.
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