State Sued for “Unconstitutionally” Denying Illegal Alien License

Emboldened by President Obama’s amnesty venture and no doubt the nation’s robust open borders movement, an illegal immigrant is suing the state she lives in for “unconstitutionally” denying her a driver’s license.

This seems to indicate that a new, bolder, more confident and demanding class of illegal alien has surfaced in the United States. Not that we haven’t seen illegal immigrants sue various U.S. agencies—at the federal, state, county and city level—over the years for violations of “constitutional rights,” but this is really brazen.

The story comes out of Nebraska, where a 24-year-old illegal alien insists she has the right, under the United States Constitution, to drive. Therefore, her lawsuit claims, she can force the state to grant her an official driver’s license. Here’s why, according to the complaint, which was filed by the notoriously leftist Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) on the woman’s behalf; she qualifies for Obama’s special Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and that means she has permission from Uncle Sam to be in the U.S. 

Under DACA, illegal immigrants under the age of 30 who came to the U.S. as children (“through no fault of their own,” as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano loves to say) can remain in the country and obtain work permits. President Obama sidestepped Congress and created it in June via executive order. This ignited a movement among open borders forces to grant the newly protected illegal aliens rights, including the right to obtain a driver’s license.

In Arizona, Governor Jan Brewer shot back by issuing an order banning illegal immigrants—including those newly protected by the Obama amnesty—from obtaining driver’s licenses or other taxpayer-funded benefits in the state. That measure was also  legally challenged  by immigrant rights groups, including MALDEF, but last month a federal court ruled in favor of Brewer’s order.

In the Nebraska case Mayra Saldana asserts the state “unconstitutionally” denies driver’s licenses to people “legally” in the United States under Obama’s youth amnesty. Saldana came to the U.S. with her illegal immigrant parents as a toddler and is a sophomore at Peru State College. She also works because DACA comes with employment authorization for the hundreds of thousands it has spared from deportation. “All DACA grantees in Nebraska are being denied the opportunity to obtain a driver’s license pursuant to Defendants’ unlawful policies and practices,” according to Saldana’s complaint.

Nebraska’s Governor Dave Heineman, is not budging though now he will be forced to spend taxpayer dollars defending the state against the lawsuit. In a statement issued shortly after Obama enacted DACA, Heineman said: “President Obama’s deferred action program to issue employment authorization documents to illegal immigrants does not make them legal citizens. The State of Nebraska will continue its practice of not issuing driver’s licenses, welfare benefits or other public benefits to illegal immigrants unless specifically authorized by Nebraska statute.”

DACA has also caused havoc in other states. In California’s largest public school district it created a costly, “bureaucratic nightmare” because applicants rushed to obtain records to prove they have lived in the U.S. continuously since 2007 as required by the measure. In the case of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), hundreds of thousands of current and former students are eligible for Obama’s special amnesty program and they’ve flooded schools throughout the sprawling district to get documents. Last fall the cash-strapped district reported that it had spent at least $200,000 to retrieve the records.