Driven mad

No it won’t.
But all across the Bay State, businesses small and even large are facing into a time of extreme uncertainty as a result of new rules for insuring motor vehicles and issuing driver’s licenses.
The rules are biting hard at the heels of the state’s thousands of undocumented Irish.
Paddy, who is from Longford, is one of them. He and his business partner, who is also Irish, have been getting by on their Irish licenses, but that will come to a stop at the end of this year unless there is a change of legislative heart. Their van is essential for their drywall and sheetrock business.
“A job could be anywhere in the state or even outside it,” Paddy said.
New insurance industry rules in the state require a valid state driver’s license before a driver’s vehicle can be insured. With a child on the way, the last thing Paddy wants to do is give up his own business and have to work for someone else.
“That would be a step backward,” he said.
Paddy worries that the people of Massachusetts are not fully informed about the issue of licenses and insurance for the undocumented.
“They tend to think in terms of crazy illegals just driving up and down the streets, but it’s not like that,” he said.
No matter what people think, the state of Massachusetts is driving away Irish immigrants by clamping down on their ability to legally drive. And immigrant advocates are fearful that even fender benders will land undocumented drivers in an immigration jam.
Like other states, such as New York and New Jersey, Massachusetts is wrestling with the issue of driver’s licenses and how much identification should be required of license applicants, immigrant and native born alike.
Under current regulations, a Massachusetts driver’s license can be obtained only with a valid social security number and several additional forms of identification. This means that as many as 150,000 undocumented immigrants in the state are effectively barred from obtaining licenses under existing law.
And undocumented Irish who have been getting by on either Irish license, or a combination of Irish and international permits, are now facing into an additional dilemma over insurance.
New rules being applied by the insurance industry in Massachusetts will mean that a state license will be necessary to obtain coverage.
“Insurance is a real mess and the rules have been changing from month to month. Now it seems that insurance companies will be allowed to cut people [with Irish licenses] off by the end of this year,” Isaac Hodes, a community organizer at the Irish Immigration Center in Boston said.
Hodes said that the prospect of losing insurance was forcing undocumented Irish who had been long living and working in Massachusetts, some of them running their own businesses, to consider giving up and returning to Ireland.
Many are Irish are also increasingly fearful that an effort to secure a license will result in information being passed to the immigration authorities.
“There is a general fear among the undocumented about going to the motor vehicle registry at all now,” said Kieran O’Sullivan of the Irish Immigration Center.
In recent days, O’Sullivan was made aware of a case in which an undocumented Galway man with an expired license had been involved in a minor accident. The man paid the fine and had thought the matter to be closed. However, the man subsequently received a letter from the immigration authorities summoning him to an interview. His case is now awaiting a hearing.
“This case is a good example of the exchange of information between law enforcement, the police and now immigration,” O’Sullivan said.
A bill that would allow undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts to obtain valid driver’s licenses is before the state legislature.
The bill is the work of a first-generation Irish-American legislator, Eugene O’Flaherty, and has the support of Irish immigrant advocacy groups, including the Irish Immigration Center.
The bill was approved by the State House of Representatives Public Safety Committee but is now stalled before the state’s recently formed Homeland Security Committee while its language is being revised.
The security committee is chaired by a co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Martin Walsh.
The bill, in its initial form, required just the production of a tax identification number — as opposed to a Social Security number — in order to obtain a state license. The tax number can be obtained by the Internal Revenue Service, though not as easily as in former years.
According to O’Sullivan, the bill’s language is in the process of being revised in order to satisfy the concerns of state legislators. The revisions will likely mean that the license applicant will have to produce a valid internationally recognized identification, such as a passport, and proof of residence in the state in addition to the tax number. The bill is expected to be reintroduced in the fall for a second round of legislative consideration.
The drive behind the bill is being headed by the Irish Immigration Center, along with immigrant groups representing other nationalities. The groups have combined in an umbrella organization called the Safe Driving Coalition.
There is a heightened sense of urgency behind the efforts of the coalition because of the tightening up of insurance regulations.
O’Flaherty’s bill has attracted the support of police chiefs in Massachusetts as well as the Boston Globe. The Globe has expressed editorial support for the measure, although with the qualification that a license applicant should have to produce a valid passport, or birth certificate, in addition to the taxpayer number.
The revised language of the bill largely reflects this view.
The bill, not surprisingly, has opponents. They cite national security concerns and fear of terrorism as reasons why illegal or undocumented immigrants should not be allowed valid licenses.
The Globe has countered that state lawmakers should resist the urge to allow passion and politics to interfere with “practical public policy.”
The paper recently reported that the problem of obtaining drivers licenses is not just confined to the undocumented population. Legal immigrants, too, are encountering a motor licensing system that has become skittish in the extreme.
The report stated that motor vehicle registry officials were acknowledging that many legal immigrants are being denied learner’s permits and driver’s licenses to which they are entitled.
Most affected are immigrants who are going through the immigration system and are awaiting permanent residence.
While they already have labor permits and Social Security numbers, they lack the ultimate proof of legal residency, a green card.
Kieran O’Sullivan at the IIC said that his office had recently dealt with cases in which an Irish priest and a nurse, both in the U.S. with valid working visas, had been refused licenses even though they were entitled to them.
But the most acute difficulties are being faced by the members of the Massachusetts workforce who happen to be currently undocumented.
Paddy from Longford is but one of the Irish facing what is literally an immigration roadblock.
Susan, who is from Dublin, has been living in Boston for three years. Her job is taking care of the elderly. She drives 40 minutes to work each day on an interstate. It is the quickest way she can get to her job.
Her car is needed to take her elderly charge to the doctor’s office. She drives to the pharmacy and does other errands.
Susan has an Irish license and an international license and is insured. However, her insurance will expire when her international permit expires next month. Renewing it would entail a trip back to Ireland and the likelihood that she could not get back into the U.S.
“It’s going to be a problem and I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Susan said of the August expiration deadline. “I won’t drive without insurance. With my luck I’d be stopped. So I’ll probably have to change my job.”
That means that her elderly client will lose the caregiver he has come to know over the past year.
Susan said that she knows other undocumented Irish, nannies and caregivers for the elderly, who are facing the same dilemma.
The one thing that Susan does not want to do is to return to Ireland.
“I love it here, she said.
Susan, being undocumented, does not have a valid Social Security number.
But she would qualify for a Massachusetts drivers license under the proposed legislation in the state house because has she a tax identification number.
“I pay my taxes,” she said emphatically.
Maeve, who is from Cork, has been living in Boston for more than seven years. She drives to work in her car and is insured under her Irish and international license. But her insurance will expire in October and under current rules will not be renewable.
“I won’t be able to drive,” she said.
Maeve said that she would have to mothball her car or sell it after October. She did not want to drive without insurance.
Maeve is determined to stay in Boston nevertheless. Giving up driving won’t be the first tough decision she has had to make during her undocumented life.
A harder one was not returning to Ireland for her grandfather’s funeral, though she there in a kind of electronic spirit. She listened to the funeral Mass by means of a cellphone placed on a seat in the church.
“I’m determined to stick it out,” she said.
Patrick, who is from Cork, has more than just his own license and insurance to consider. Along with his wife and two children, Patrick lives on Cape Cod. He is self-employed and pays his taxes.
“I’m paying my taxes but I can’t even get a beach sticker. No license no sticker,” said Patrick.
But beach access in the town where he lives is the least of Patrick’s concerns. His business will ultimately depend of his ability to keep driving his truck.
On top of that, his children are both old enough to get licenses but can’t because, like their parents, they are out of status.
“It’s unfair for our kids to be accused of breaking the law. I’m paying all that I’m required to pay. Why should I not get a Massachusetts license? There’s no sense to it,” Patrick said.