This weekend, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark became the latest New York official to endorse proposed legislation that would grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Last month, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez also announced his support for the idea, which already has Gov. Cuomo’s enthusiastic backing.
A dozen states and the District of Columbia already allow illegal immigrants to get licenses, and the legislatures in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are also considering it. Advocates say granting licenses to illegal immigrants will enhance road safety.
They also predict it would produce a $57 million windfall, generated by fees, for the Empire State — if, as a liberal think tank predicts, some 265,000 illegals take advantage of the offer.
That’s a debatable proposition. Most such immigrants stay in the shadows precisely because they fear that accurate documentation will expose them to accountability for having broken the law, thus giving the lie to the liberal euphemism according to which they are wrongly termed “undocumented” rather than illegal.
Supporters of the proposal also argue that, like the laws passed in other states, the New York legislation won’t give illegal immigrants citizenship or allow them to vote. But the law will make their lives easier and allow them to drive to work or drive their children to school without fear of the consequences if they are pulled over by the police.
As a spokesman for New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said last year when he endorsed the legislation, the goal is “integrating people into our communities.”
While that may sound laudable, it is a severe blow to the rule of law that will also undermine a vital civic principle: the importance of citizenship.
The real impact of this legislation is to render null and void the laws that require those who wish to stay here to do so with legal permission.
Set aside the fact that states are claiming rights that belong to the federal government. What New York would be doing is asserting that the distinctions between legal and illegal immigrant, and citizen and non-citizen, are meaningless.
The current debate about illegal immigration has become mixed up with resentment of President Trump, who has made the goal of halting the flow of illegals a priority. But whether or not you support an expanded border wall or think that the current surge of illegal immigrants is a national emergency, the fact remains that the measures like these encourage the growing number of border crossings and other means of illegal entry.
If New York joins the “sanctuary” cities and states that are making it easier for illegal immigrants to continue to evade the law, it will essentially be putting out a welcome sign for them.
That’s what some in the socialist wing of the Democratic Party want when they insist that their coalition consists of “the documented and the undocumented,” as failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate and current party rock star Stacey Abrams recently did. Anyone who opposes such extreme measures, hard-left Democrats say, is racist.
Yet even if we take seriously the promise that providing illegal immigrants licenses with picture IDs won’t let them vote in our elections, what this law signals is that taking on the obligations as well as the privileges of citizenship is an outdated concept some of our leaders no longer value.
That’s news to those who arrive legally and who, after going through the necessary legal measures, take the oath of citizenship, which requires them to renounce other allegiances, to swear to support and defend the US Constitution and the laws of this country and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
Whatever benefits the driver’s-license law will grant some otherwise sympathetic illegal immigrants can’t balance out the damage the measure would do to the sanctity of the law and the concept of citizenship.
Jonathan Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a contributor to National Review. Twitter: @jonathans_tobin
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