Democrat legislation will put more drunk drivers on the roads (but they’re illegal, so it’s okay)

Year after year, drunk drivers account for as many deaths in America as murders using firearms do. So why don’t the Democrats seem to care?

A New Jersey Senate committee is hearing some shocking testimony today on S-3229, legislation that would create a special driver’s license for illegals at $18 dollars, while raising the price of driver’s licenses for everyone else from $24 to $29. Members of the Senate Transportation Committee are hearing the following testimony as you receive this…

“Worse, under the bill you’re considering today in particular, documents and information obtained from an applicant for an illegal alien’s driver's license will be confidential and not be considered a government record. More specifically, the bill prohibits the use of this material in the investigation, arrest, citation, prosecution, or detention of illegal aliens, as it relates to for their criminal immigration status. The bill does include exceptions for certain federal legal provisions (pursuant to 8 U.S.C. s.1373 and 8 U.S.C. s.1644) and for a valid court order or subpoena. That said, today’s New Jersey Licenses for Illegals bill does not include an exception for illegal aliens who drive drunk or commit human trafficking, arson, violent child abuse, sexual assault, rape, murder, vehicular manslaughter or homicide, or even terrorism. It should.

An alien illegally present in the United States guilty of such offenses should face investigation, arrest, citation, prosecution, detention, and frankly imprisonment or deportation, as appropriate, for their criminal immigration status, period – and, frankly, should not get a discounted driver’s license in New Jersey regardless.

Let’s take drunk driving as one example directly relevant to drivers licenses. In Fiscal Year 2017, “Traffic Offenses – DUI,” i.e. driving under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs, was the most commonly listed component of the criminal backgrounds of aliens administratively arrested by U.S. Immigration andCustoms Enforcement, a staggering 80,547 or 56% of those arrested, including criminal charges and convictions in the federal system of record, according to ICE.

Given that fact, S-3229 should include some kind of exception that either bars illegal aliens convicted of drunk driving from receiving licenses, allows law enforcement personnel to use driver’s license application documents in criminal immigration proceedings as part of their investigation into those crimes, or both.

Another example: the second-most common element of criminal background of ICE-arrested aliens in the U.S. in Fiscal Year 2017 was “Dangerous Drugs,” a total of 76,503 aliens, or 53%. Illegal aliens convicted of criminal charges associated with dangerous drugs would seem to be an important ground for excluding

applicants from licenses – or at least allowing law enforcement authorities to use submitted documents in an investigation that might result in deportation.

How about “Traffic Offenses,” which figured fourth most often in the criminal backgrounds of aliens in FY2017, a total of 68,346 aliens, or 47% of those arrested by ICE.

That’s right: You’re about to vote for a bill that gives driver’s licenses to illegals, and shields the documents they submit from disclosure for investigations, even if they are charged or convicted specifically of traffic offenses, one of the most common offenses aliens arrested by ICE commit in the U.S.. That’s a mistake.

The list goes on: Liquor Offenses, Sex Offenses, Weapons Offenses, Stolen Vehicles, Robbery, Sexual Assault, Kidnapping, Homicide – all too common among the backgrounds of ICE-arrested aliens in FY2017.”

None of these exclusions are carved out in S-3229. The result of this vote will become abundantly clear as the victims of this legislation pile up…

Senate President Steve Sweeney is a man given to hubris. Just look at his staff, who is there, and for how long. Hubris.

Of late the Senate President’s hubris appears to have contaminated the Democrat Party caucuses in both chambers of the Legislature. A woman is manhandled and muscled out of a public hearing for the amusement of a Democrat Party boss. A Sweeney bill takes away the property tax cap to allow unrestrained property tax hikes across New Jersey. The “lame duck” session of the Legislature is used to push all sorts of grossly unpopular legislation. The lives and personal well-being of tens of thousands of workers are targeted with a Sweeney bill that takes away their livelihoods. After cutting education funding to hundreds of thousands of school children, the Democrats push an immunization bill that threatens to throw thousands more out of the classroom and on to the streets. What modern government has taken away the right to education from people because of their religion (outside of places like genocidal Myanmar)? And now they push legislation to raise the cost of a driver’s license to citizens and legal immigrants, while rewarding illegal immigrants with a cut rate driver’s license.

We have not seen such hubris in New Jersey since 1990-91.