Gov. Schwarzenegger achieved one of his campaign promises when the Democrats agreed to repeal the law authorizing drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants. He agreed to revisit the issue next year in the regular legislative session to develop a law authorizing the licenses but with better security checks than the old law provided.
Democrats apparently calculated that in the current anti-immigrant atmosphere in California, if Schwarzenegger pushed for an initiative to outlaw the licenses, then it would be locked into law in a law that would be harder to change. This way, Schwarzenegger will be on the spot next year if he balks at a reasonable compromise proposal.
The Spanish-language La Opinion carried a good editorial by Carlos Ramos on the license issue. He challenges the anti-immigrant majority to start looking at the whole issue a little more realistically. For instance, the use of immigrant nannies, often undocumented immigrants, is widespread among affluent Californians. "How has it changed the lives of millions of middle-class American women," he asks, "that thanks to their immigrant baby sitter they can dedicate themselves full-time to their careers?"
Sure, he says, lots of immigrants are here illegally because the economy demands them. Those who think immigrants aren't involved in their lives should ask themselves, he suggests, "who maintains their garden, parks their car, cleans their house or office, takes care of the baby, [and] repairs or paints their house." He calls attention to the hypocrisy of the whole act with this rhetorical question:
<< Then it's cynical to use the theme of immigration as a cheap piñata that you can knock around when you want to incite nationalistic passions. If one does not question the migratory situation of someone that he needs to hire for a job at low pay, why do they have to scream to high heaven when that same person needs to obtain a drivers license? >>
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