Bills recently introduced in the Michigan House would see many legal immigrants given a visible marker on their driver’s license to indicate their immigration status, and this is prompting concerns about discrimination and profiling by immigrant advocacy groups.
Representative Pamela Hornberger and Representative Beth Griffin, both Republicans, proposed a couple of House bills last month that called for drivers’ licenses belonging to non-citizens to state the date when the license holder’s legal status expires and visual markings differentiating them from other drivers’ licenses. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is currently considering the bills, which also deal with state identification cards. A committee hearing set to take place on Tuesday.
Representative Triston Cole, the chairman of the committee that is considering the bills, says he does not expect much resistance to the bills and believes that it will move quickly once the hearing process has been concluded. Cole believes that the requirements would prevent immigrants from still being able to hold a driver’s license if they choose to remain in the United States illegally following the expiration of their legal status.
However, many immigrants have concerns about the bill, particularly in light of the increasingly tough immigration enforcement being pursued by the Trump administration. Anna Hill, an attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, sent a letter to Cole stating that the bills would result in the profiling of legal immigrants and that the move would be redundant because licenses are only issued for the length of an immigrant’s legal status by the Secretary of State.