Immigrants expect driver’s licenses will be ‘relief’

LOS ANGELES – Claudia Bedolla never leaves home without making a calculation: Is this trip worth the risk?

Bedolla has a car but no driver’s license. She hasn’t been eligible for one in California, having never obtained legal immigration status since arriving from Mexico at age 10. If she were stopped by police, she could be fined hundreds of dollars for driving without proper documentation and have her car impounded.

So she makes choices. A drive to the grocery store or to pick up her kids from school is deemed essential. Nearly everything else is not.

Bedolla, 36, is raising five U.S.-born children in Pomona, east of downtown Los Angeles. “I don’t even go to my kids’ games, because I’d rather not risk it,” she said.

Beginning today, Bedolla will have a chance to change that when California becomes one of 10 states to allow immigrants in the country illegally to apply for special licenses.

She and her husband are among tens of thousands who have already made appointments with the Department of Motor Vehicles to apply for licenses. “It’s an incredible relief,” Bedolla said. “Now we won’t have to worry every day.”

Supporters of the law say it will alter immigrants’ attitudes toward law enforcement and increase levels of civic engagement.

“It’s going to change everything,” said Ben Wood, an organizer at the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, a nonprofit that assists day laborers and is one of dozens of groups across the state offering license test preparation classes for immigrants. “Once people are able to lose a little bit of the fear they had of being on the road, that will increase participation.”

License applicants will have to provide documents to verify their identities and prove they reside in California. They will each also have to submit a thumbprint, pass vision and written exams and schedule a behind-the-wheel driving test. The special licenses will feature text explaining that they are “not acceptable for official federal purposes,” such as boarding an airplane.

The agency has been working for more than a year to prepare for the 1.5 million applications expected in the first three years of the program. An extra $141 million has been budgeted to handle the influx, with the DMV opening four new offices and hiring an additional 900 employees.

The cost has been a point of contention for critics, some of whom also complain that the new program rewards immigrants who broke the law with “quasi-amnesty.”

Democrats in the Legislature, who argue the program will improve traffic safety by requiring immigrants who are already driving to study the rules of the road, pushed through the law allowing special licenses in 2013 after a decadeslong battle.

In the past, many people in the country without permission had been able to obtain California driver’s licenses because applicants did not have to prove they had legal immigration status. That changed in 1993 with the passage of a law that required any first-time applicant to provide a Social Security number.

The new law may be a boon to the auto insurance industry. Some companies are targeting advertising to those who are eligible for the licenses.

“This is a whole new population of individuals who will now be entering the market and shopping for insurance,” said Madison Voss, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Insurance. About two dozen insurance companies in California have sold insurance to unlicensed immigrants for years, Voss said.

Robert Correa, a broker at Guidance Insurance Agency in Highland Park, said about 20 percent of his clients don’t have licenses. In a city as sprawling as Los Angeles, many immigrants have no choice but to drive, he said.

Immigrant advocates are pushing people to study for the tests, noting that in Nevada, a large percentage of immigrants flunked the written test in the first few weeks a new driver’s license was offered there. Advocates are also working to ensure that immigrants with poor literacy skills and those who speak obscure indigenous languages are not excluded from the process.

“This is an issue this community has always faced,” said Arcenio Lopez, who works with the Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project, a group that represents indigenous workers in Ventura County who hail from Mexican states such as Oaxaca and Guerrero.

Jaime Garza, a spokesman for the DMV, said the written license test is available in 31 languages but there is not sufficient demand for tests in indigenous Mexican dialects. Those who do not speak English or Spanish can request a translator, he said.

Other groups are addressing the fears of some immigrants who may be used to life in the shadows.

Aquilina Soriano-Versoza, director of the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California, said many in her community are excited about the opportunity to drive legally, “but there are others who are wary of identifying themselves in any way to the government.”