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May 31 2013

Republican bill would prevent young immigrants, raised in America, from getting drivers licenses

Back in February we blogged about how Ohio public safety officials were denying driver’s licenses to young immigrants who had recently been issued work permits under a new program announced by President Obama last year. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program  allows young people who came to the United States without authorization to apply for a work permit and social security number if they: 1) came here before the age of 16; 2) have been in the U.S. for the last six years; 3) are either in school, have graduated from high school, or have served in the armed forces; and 4) have not been convicted of any serious crimes and are not a threat to national security. For several months Ohio BMV officials would say only that they were studying the issue internally, all the while denying licenses to individuals who the federal government had explicitly said were allowed to live and work in the United States. Finally, after Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine told the Columbus Dispatch that he thought Ohio law as written did include DACA recipients within the driver’s license eligibility requirements, BMV officials relented and began allowing DACA recipients to apply for driver’s licenses on March 29. [Read more…]

Written by brianhoffman · Categorized: Innovation Station · Tagged: HB 114, Immigration, Matt Lynch

Nov 15 2012

Ohio House GOP Immigration Effort Creates Unfunded Mandate on Local Govs, Invites Expensive Litigation

Fresh from an election that saw them win a majority of seats – despite winning fewer total votes than their Democratic peers, Ohio Republicans wasted no time in getting back to an agenda that bolsters Ohio’s economy and encourages job creation. Oh wait – that’s not what happened at all. Yesterday, the same day that another Ohio House Committee passed a bill to block funding to Planned Parenthood, the Transportation, Public Safety, and Homeland Security Committee heard sponsor testimony on a new bill (HB 580) that would require Ohio’s police officers to check the immigration status of persons suspected of being in the country illegally. The bill would require police officers doing even routine traffic stops to make a complicated set of determinations about whether it’s “reasonable” to suspect that someone is in the county illegally, whether it’s “practicable” to try to figure out if they actually are, and whether trying to make that determination would “hinder or obstruct” an investigation. It also requires the officer to make all of these decisions without relying on race, color or national origin. Testifying in support of their bill, Reps. Courtney Combs (R-Fairfield) and Matt Lynch (R-Chagrin Falls) managed to pack enough racially insensitive asides and offensively misinformed assertions into their few minutes of testimony to provoke expressions of outrage and even derisive laughter on several occasions from those attending the hearing. At one point, attendees laughed openly at Rep. Combs’ assertion that “[Racial] profiling is not what it was many years ago.” Combs was eloquently corrected later on by Rep. Bill Patmon (D-Cleveland) who assured him, to murmurs of approval from the gallery, that profiling is indeed a continuing problem for racial minorities. [Read more…]

Written by brianhoffman · Categorized: Innovation Station · Tagged: Coutney Combs, Immigration, Law Enforcement, Matt Lynch, Ohio Politics

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