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Report: Washington State Issues Emergency Driver License Rule To “Foil” ICE

Report: Washington State Issues Emergency Driver License Rule To “Foil” ICE

“DOL is taking these actions to ensure the agency is safeguarding personal information that can be used to determine immigration status”

https://youtu.be/-XcvrmrPkVM

As the open-borders agenda of the left finally sees the light of day, it’s not surprising to learn that blue cities and states are no longer solely committed to refusing to work with ICE.  They are now actively working against federal immigration law and policy, even going so far as to issue emergency rules intended to protect illegal aliens from deportation.

In Washington state, one such “emergency rule” was approved Friday.  The rule says that the country of birth is no longer required on applications for Washington driver licenses.  Washington state officials say that asking for the place of one’s birth on an application for a driver license can lead to targeting by ICE.  They are having none of that.

Last year, Washington state’s Department of Licensing announced: “DOL takes immediate steps to stop disclosure of information to federal immigration authorities.”

The Washington State Department of Licensing is taking immediate action to ensure the agency is safeguarding personal information that can be used to determine immigration status and to uphold the intent of Governor Inslee’s Executive Order 17-01, Reaffirming Washington’s Commitment to Tolerance, Diversity, and Inclusiveness.

. . . . In consultation with the Governor’s Office and the Office of the Attorney General, DOL announced the following steps:

  • Stopping the release of all records to federal immigration authorities. Moving forward, records will not be released to these entities without a court order signed by a federal judge or magistrate, or under the requirement of state or federal law.
  • Conducting a thorough review of agency processes and computer systems with the Governor’s Office and the Office of the Attorney General.
  • Using emergency rulemaking to end the collection of information that isn’t mandated and could be misused, such as place of birth information gathered during the driver license or ID card application process. Once the emergency rulemaking process begins, information can be found here: http://www.dol.wa.gov/about/driversrules.html.
  • Accepting the resignation of DOL Deputy Director Jeff DeVere’s. DeVere was the executive sponsor overseeing compliance with Executive Order 17-01.
  • Hiring of a community liaison officer to work with community groups to ensure DOL processes, procedures and services meet the needs of all Washington residents. This person, who will report to the agency director, will provide oversight and accountability and coordinate outreach and education to individuals and stakeholder groups.
  • Establishing a new hotline to answer customer concerns and any questions they may have about this issue.
  • Educating DOL staff on all changes made to policies and procedures related to the release of information to law enforcement and ensure all requests are evaluated properly. We also will make sure all staff understand the Governor’s Executive Order and the importance of diversity, tolerance and inclusion.

These new rules were not enough, however, so the state issued the aforementioned “emergency rule” to stop asking applicants for their place of birth.

KING5 reports:

Washington residents who apply for a standard driver license, instruction permit and ID card are no longer required to provide their place of birth as part of the application process.

Earlier this month, The Seattle Times reported that the Washington Department of Licensing (DOL) had been giving residents’ personal information to federal immigration-enforcement officers, who used that information to arrest and deport people under President Trump’s immigration policies.

A spokesperson for Governor Jay Inslee’s Office said until they were questioned by the Times, they hadn’t understood the extent of DOL’s cooperation with ICE.

“We’ve asked them to stop what they’re doing at this point,” spokeswoman Jaime Smith had said.

On January 19, DOL filed emergency rule-making to immediately end the collection of information not required by state or federal statute. The change took effect Friday, January 26.

The emergency rule lasts 120 days. During that time, DOL plans to permanently eliminate place of birth as a requirement to apply for a driver license or ID card.

“DOL is taking these actions to ensure the agency is safeguarding personal information that can be used to determine immigration status and to uphold the intent of Governor Inslee’s Executive Order 17-01, Reaffirming Washington’s Commitment to Tolerance, Diversity, and Inclusiveness,” DOL said in a press release.

The leftist Huffington Post gleefully announces that the new emergency measure is a direct attempt to “foil” ICE.

The Washington State Department of Licensing has issued an emergency rule to change driver’s license requirements to help protect undocumented immigrants from a crackdown by federal authorities. Drivers no longer have to identify their place of birth.

State residents who apply for a standard driver’s license, instruction permit or I.D. won’t have to list a birthplace now, according to the order, which went into effect Friday.

The move is the latest in a West Coast war with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who are targeting the region.

Watch the report:

Open borders and amnesty are not popular among American voters, so the left is trying to leverage our “immigrant history,” “who we are as a people,” and an amazing array of alternate sympathetic/condemning and accusatory terminology in an attempt to sway us.

The more fevered the left gets in leaping from declaring illegal aliens “undocumented workers” to attempting to establish illegal aliens as Americans, the more the majority of the American people tune out.

https://twitter.com/fuzislippers/status/956927888594472965

Washington’s “emergency rule” is intended to diminish President Trump and his common sense immigration policy.

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Comments

This can be easily fixed, make passports free, make all post offices accept passport applications, change the I9 form to only accept U.S. passports or foreign passports with accompanying work authorization or Green Card.

    starride in reply to starride. | January 27, 2018 at 3:54 pm

    And remove reciprocity of drivers license without accompanying passport.

      notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to starride. | January 27, 2018 at 6:09 pm

      Wait till those Washingdumbs find out the Russians have hacked all those driver license files – LEGALLY!

      LOL

      tom_swift in reply to starride. | January 27, 2018 at 10:34 pm

      All that will accomplish is depriving drivers from the other states of the legal right to operate motor vehicles in Washington state.

      That’s the nature of “reciprocity”.

wouldn’t it be amusing if the feds declared WA Dls invalid as ID for air travel, etc?

    VINEYARDMH in reply to redc1c4. | January 27, 2018 at 4:07 pm

    Guess what….THEY ARE INVALID. WA state is one of several (maybe 10 or 11??) that are not valid at TSA – or if you want to enter a military base where ‘valid ID’ must be shown.

    NOW – WA State does have an “ENHANCED DRIVER’S LICENCE” – and it acts like a passport for Canada, Mexico and some Caribbean nations…and it does require all sorts of proof of citizenship. The warnings have been out for several years that the standard WA license won’t be useful in the near future!

    snopercod in reply to redc1c4. | January 27, 2018 at 4:54 pm

    That’s exactly what is going to happen in 2020. If you don’t have a “REAL ID”, you will have to present a passport to fly domestically.

    For a driver’s license to be REAL ID-compliant, a state must require applicants to present either a photo ID or an ID which includes a full name and birth date, proof of birth date (generally a birth certificate), proof of resident status and social security number, and proof of address.

    REAL IDs are also required to have the holder’s signature, gender, a unique identifying number, and certain anti-tampering or counterfeiting measures.

    As of now, these States are non-compliant: Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Washington.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to redc1c4. | January 27, 2018 at 6:10 pm

    They should.

I am a WA state resident. Maybe I should go to Oregon and ask for an OREGON licence….(or just photocopy and modify that license…) – then when I buy things in WA STATE – I show the OR drivers license and request the exemption on paying sales tax. After all – if following laws is optional – I am willing to go along with it and support this ‘lawlessness’.

A drivers license is Washington State’s preferred proof of identification to register to vote. Is WA going to register all these folks to vote with their new drivers licenses?

https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/vrf_english_web.pdf

I don’t understand how all these states appear to be doing what they want to do, but when it came to Arizona protecting its state (SB 1070), doing what it felt it needed to do, it was struck down by the SC. Can someone please enlighten me on this? Thank you!

    gospace in reply to Helen. | January 27, 2018 at 4:59 pm

    Enlightenment ion that is easy.

    Laws passed by Democrats are assumed valid by all liberal judges.

    Laws passed by Republicans are assumed invalid by all liberal judges and overturned unless appealed to the Supreme Court, and maybe not even then do they become valid.

    The principle for DOJ action is actually quite similar between AZ and WA.

    For AZ, the DOJ lawsuit against that state was based on the enforcement of federal immigration laws and border security was the exclusive purview of the federal govt. Yet, even though the Feds were limp biscuits in their enforcement, and AZ mirrored federal law in every way, the ‘spite house’ couldn’t abide any interruption to the flow of new democrat voters into the country. So, Obama sued AZ.

    Up in WA, it’s the same principle, but with an admin that actually wants the border secure. Federal immigration laws and border security are the exclusive purview of the federal govt. The supremacy clause trumps (pun!) any state attempts to re-write enforcement provisions or to go all confederate insurrection and nullify federal law by simply ignoring it.

    The problem is AG Jeff Snoozey-McSnoozy Sessions isn’t capable or ready to pull the trigger on all these confederate insurrections against Trump world.

    Milhouse in reply to Helen. | January 27, 2018 at 8:47 pm

    It’s very easy to understand; I think you’re only pretending not to. Arizona legislated on a topic where it had no right to. States have no right to make any laws about immigration. WA isn’t doing anything about immigration. It’s simply changing what information it asks for on driver’s license applications. I don’t know why it ever asked for place of birth — how is that relevant to whether someone should be allowed to drive a car? — but it certainly doesn’t have to, and it has every right to stop asking for it.

      Arizona legislated on a topic where it had no right to. States have no right to make any laws about immigration. WA isn’t doing anything about immigration. It’s simply changing what information it asks for on driver’s license applications.

      Huh. You have actually made a good point. Clock right once a day/blind squirrel’s acorn.

      State’s don’t need a country of birth for a driver’s license. That is why States are creating the enhanced driver’s license you will need for everything else short of a passport.

      Mac45 in reply to Milhouse. | January 27, 2018 at 11:43 pm

      I thought that the legal logic applied to the Arizona law was faulty. The courts did not strike down the entire statute. And the SCOTUS decision was 5-3.

      A state can certainly enact a law outlawing any behavior within its borders, as long as such enforcement does not violate the provisions of the US Constitution or federal law, in some areas. In the case of the AZ immigration law, section 6 made it a crime to engage in activity which violated federal immigration law. The SCOTUS ruled that as most cases of being undocumented did not rise to the level of a criminal offense under federal law, AZ had no authority to make such activity a crime, as it “presented an obstacle to the full purposes and objectives of Congress”, whatever those might be. This might be a valid point. But, it is certainly not clearly applicable to the AZ law. Section 3 was found to be in opposition to federal law, for the same reason. Section 5 was deemed unconstitutional because there was no federal counterpart to its power. The argument being, that in a vacuum, a state can do nothing. Kind of a strange decision.

      The dissenting opinions are very interesting and largely disagree that the Federal government has occupied the entire field of alien registration because the State of Arizona was not attempting to register any alien in the United States. It only made it a violation of state law to violate federal with regard to alien registration. Scalia argued that Arizona had the authority to exclude persons from its territory by right of sovereignty, except as limited by Congress. I admit that this is a stretch, but it so very state’s rights. Thomas argued that preemption was not applicable as the AZ law did not actually conflict with the federal law, recognizing that the enumerated actions were a violation under both systems. Alito’s reasons were more a little more complex but he agreed that sections 2, 5 and 6 did not conflict with federal law in any way and, in fact sec. 5 was in line with the decision in De Canas v Bica and that 6 did not give state law enforcement officers significantly more power than they already enjoyed.

      All in all, I feel that Arizona v United States was largely a liberal political decision not well grounded in legal logic.

        Milhouse in reply to Mac45. | January 28, 2018 at 2:16 am

        I agree that it was not a good decision, and I hope it’s reversed one day. But the question was how to reconcile this WA law with that decision, and the answer is very easily, because there’s no conflict between them at all.

        It seems to me that since federal law is the law of the land it ought to be obvious that states are entitled to enforce it, should they choose to do so. The feds can’t commandeer a state’s help, but I don’t see how they have a right to refuse and forbid that help. Especially if the ostensible reason they’re refusing to enforce it themselves is lack of resources; how can they then turn down a state’s willing offer of those resources? But until the Supreme Court reverses itself, this remains the situation.

Hey… these people have elected Patty Murray to the Senate since 1992 so don’t expect much from them.

However, it sounds like maybe the feds should look at using federal laws on marijuana. The state gets lots of money on each marijuana sale. That, it seems, would make the state dealers. Nail the governor for being a drug dealer.

I’m no fan of the DHS program called ‘Real ID,’ but apparently, Washington state doesn’t want to be in compliance. There are approx. 20 states which currently are not in compliance.

Failure to comply means state residents cannot enter federal facilities, like a military base, or fly commercially.

WA has an extension for compliance that expires Oct. 2018. Extensions are granted by the DHS secretary on a case by case basis.

What’s required for compliance? From the DHS website: “…application information to establish the identity and immigration status of an applicant before a card can be issued…”

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-01-29/html/08-140.htm

The Feds are not without tools, but I loath this type of heavy-handed federal repression. Yet, when loon toons perch in the halls of power and crap all over the landscape, a campaign of pain must be applied to return some sanity.

Simple solution. The Feds need not accept any such license as identification for interstate commerce. No airplane flights etc.

    Mac45 in reply to puhiawa. | January 27, 2018 at 8:26 pm

    This is already the case in Washington State. Washington issues two types of DLs. One is an enhanced DL which conforms to the identification requirements of the Real ID Act. This includes evidence of live birth [a Birth Certificate, baptismal certificate or other acceptable identification, US passport or US immigration documentation showing the person to be in the country legally] a social security number and proof of residence. The enhanced DL can be utilized to identification purposes such as boarding a common carrier. Then they have the basic DL and ID card. The requirements to issue the basic DL are nearly as stringent as the requirements for the issuance of the enhanced DL. It can not be used for travel by common carrier.

    As there are noticeable differences between the basic and EDL, it is relatively easy to sift through names, DOBs, Soc Sec numbers and initial issue dates and make a pretty good guess as to who might be here illegally. Then a quick check with Soc Security and the INS database, if necessary, and bingo.

      Mac45 in reply to Mac45. | January 27, 2018 at 8:28 pm

      Correction, this should read: “The requirements to issue the basic DL are not nearly as stringent as the requirements for the issuance of the enhanced DL.”

      Sorry – Mac

This is nothing short of nullification. The last time Democrats did that, it resulted in a civil war.

    Milhouse in reply to Matt_SE. | January 27, 2018 at 8:50 pm

    You are a ****ing liar. Which law is WA nullifying? Which law says people applying for a driver’s license must be asked where they were born? Why on earth did they ever ask that? How is it relevant?

    tom_swift in reply to Matt_SE. | January 27, 2018 at 10:29 pm

    The war wasn’t caused by any form of nullification. It wasn’t even caused by secession. Or by most Dem congresscritters leaving Washington and moving to Richmond.

    It was caused by artillery bombardment of a Federal fort. This silliness was done deliberately; the intention was to start a war. An actual war obstinately refused to happen before that.

    If certain Southern gentlemen hadn’t been so quick on the literal trigger, American history might have evolved quite differently.

      You have it backwards. It was not the South that wanted a war, it was the North. When the State of South Carolina seceded, the island, upon which Fort Sumter was built, was well within the territorial limits recognized for sovereign nations. South Carolina asked the USA to remove its troops from land belonging to South Carolina, several times. The US refused. Finally, South Carolina was placed in the position of evicting the Union troops by force, or of attacking the US fleet en-route to resupply Fort Sumter. It chose to evict the troops. This was the same as Confederate troops inhabiting Liberty Island and refusing to vacate. The US HAD to have a reason to justify invading the Confederacy. And, it made one up.

        DaveGinOly in reply to Mac45. | January 28, 2018 at 12:14 am

        Ft. Sumter, and various other federal installations in the South were “insular possessions” of the federal government. When the southern states seceded, that did not include these federal possession (that had been ceded to the federal government by the states in better times). The Union was right to maintain control of them and the South recognized this, attempting enter into negotiations with the North for their acquisition. But the North didn’t recognize the CSA as a sovereign and refused to negotiate with it. Southerners ran out of patience and bombarded Ft. Sumter.

        The CSA started an avoidable war. It gave the Union the excuse it needed to use force to bring them back into the fold. A huge mistake.

        Had cooler heads prevailed, the South could have blockaded the Union’s insular possessions, letting in nothing but food and medicine. The North wasn’t spoiling for a fight; Northerners were not in favor of war. But the CSA did exactly the thing that gets people fired up for war – an outright attack. Ask the CSA, Japan, or the Taliban/Al-Qaeda how things turn out when the United States is attacked.

          This has been the argument, but it is simply not logical. Control of the island upon which Ft. Sumter was situated was ceded to the US government but with the understanding that South Carolina was part of the United States and that the US government would utilize Ft. Sumter to protect Charleston. However, when South Carolina seceded from the Union, which was perfectly with its rights under the Constitution, it was no longer a member of the USA and the US government had no responsibility or authority to defend any part of South Carolina’s territory. In fact, by continuing to staff Ft. Sumter, and several other forts within Confederate territory, the US was essentially occupying Confederate territory.

          The Confederacy, however, bent over backwards to come to an amiable parting of the ways with the US. It offered to reimburse the US government for the cost of the facilities which it had constructed within the territory of states which had seceded. It negotiated for months on these issues. And, as you pointed out, the US government was intransigent. There was no way that it could supply these facilities, without “invading” Confederate territory, and relinquished several of them for this reason. Ft. Sumter was not even staffed, at the time that South Carolina seceded. The garrison at Ft. Moultrie was moved there a week after South Carolina seceded, taking some of the smaller guns, which were emplaced to fire upon the city, not invaders.

          And, the leadership of the US federal government were well aware that what the Confederate states had done, by seceding, was perfectly legal. That is why the Union did not simply invade the Confederacy as soon as the states seceded and why it took 6 years for the Confederate states to be READMITTED to the Union. If they were simply areas in rebellion to the US government, then there would be no need to readmit them, as they had never actually left. Everything that the US government did, during the Civil War, indicated that it felt that it was dealing with another sovereign nation which had attacked it, not with a group of rebels occupying US territory. This was still the era of state’s rights supremacy in the US. The Civil War was essentially a battle between state’s rights and federalism and federalism won.

          The only way that war was unavoidable is it the Confederate states rejoined the USA. The US could not afford to lose anymore member states or allow an independent nation, one which was actually richer than the Northern states and not particularly well disposed to the US, to exist on its Southern Border. No matter what the Confederates did, there was going to be war.

By they’re actions they reveal themselves. The Trump election and year of resistance has been a thorough outing of the all the masks of progressives, the media, the professional left, the Democrats and our Federal workforce. If you tried to hire a team to unearth proof of what the left does, you could afford them. These folks reveal themselves… by their actions.. not words… actions… they are showing themselves to be putrid partisans and ideologues.

Well worth it. The country will be better for it. We must go through this. All the misinformation and propaganda of the last 70 years is in plain sight. And not just speeches… but in actual actions. They want to tear our country to pieces UNLESS they are in control to redistribute and regulate.. and play games with the law. I don’t think it will get to violence… our civil war was an outlier. One side is going to lose… and I think it’s the side that has only gained what they have by lying and misdirection and propaganda in the school system and immigrants.

I love it. They cannot afford sunlight. They cannot withstand scrutiny or accountability.

Patty Murray knows she can’t win without the illegals voting.

There’s probably a lot of noise here about something not so terribly revolutionary or profound. It’s hard to get excited about something like, say, this frantic decree—

On January 19, DOL filed emergency rule-making to immediately end the collection of information not required by state or federal statute.

Ooooh, sounds like a big deal; very radical, maybe even positively edgy. So … they’ll no longer collect … information they don’t need anyway. The information important to the issuance of the license—as specified by law—will be collected as usual.

Which seems to be a bit of a nothingburger.

    Milhouse in reply to tom_swift. | January 28, 2018 at 2:25 am

    I don’t know. Matt_SE seems to think there’s a law lurking somewhere in the US Code that requires states to ask would-be drivers where they were born. I wonder whether it also makes them ask what kind of underwear they prefer, or whether they like olives.

What say you, Jeff Sessions?

Good luck getting on a plane or amtrak.

Idiots!

    That assumes that Amtrak’s employees aren’t themselves engaged in rebellion against their lawful President, as significant portions of the EPA and the intelligence agencies already are.

4th armored div | January 28, 2018 at 10:35 am

seems to me that ALL federally funded programs –
food stamps,
unemployment payments,
sec 8 – housing assistance,
guaranteed school/home loans
and others need to require proof of ‘legal status’.

no proof no qualify.

if states that administer such financial distributions refuse
to verify then the feds need to halt funding.

DavidJackSmith | January 28, 2018 at 11:17 am

How difficult can it be for ICE to compare a state’s driving licences against the social security numbers database to establish which don’t match?

OleDirtyBarrister | January 28, 2018 at 2:07 pm

Trump should do two things.

One, beat the drum on terminating federal to state cooperation on law enforcement matters. Deny access to federal databases and deny assistance from agencies like FBI and USMS to the extent permissible. Let it be known that cooperation is fully a two way street, or none at all.

Second, start beating the drum on the illegal marijuana racket the western states are running and talk a lot about long prison sentences for state officials and seizure and forfeiture.

Confusing country of birth with citizenship is a big mistake. A person can be born an American citizen overseas, as is the case with Mitt Romney, John McCain and me. I am a natural-born citizen of the United States, born in Asunción, Paraguay, under the aegis of the US Consulate while my father was on active Navy duty during WWII.

As far as I know, I have never been denied rights on account of showing a passport or driver license citing a foreign birthplace. There must be a million Americans in a similar situation.