enforcement

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is pushing for last-minute funding to double her agency's ability to investigate drug trafficking as the Legislature moves toward adjournment.

Rosenblum's request is getting a second look in the wake of The Oregonian's five-part series this week on rampant drug trafficking in Oregon, fueled by Mexican cartels. The series detailed drug trafficking organizations in nearly every corner of the state.

Read the full article at OregonLive.com. Read more about Oregon attorney general pushes Legislature for more drug investigators

A federal appeals panel on Friday upheld an eastern Nebraska city's ban on renting to people who aren't in the U.S. legally, opening the door for the town of Fremont to begin enforcing its law and offering implications for other cities with similar ordinances.

Fremont voters handily approved a measure in 2010 that bans hiring or renting to people who can't prove they are in the country legally.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp ruled that parts of the ordinance denying housing permits to those not in the country legally were discriminatory and interfere with federal law. But the city has been enforcing its requirement that businesses use federal E-verify software to check on potential employees.

On Friday, two judges of a three-member panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that reasoning, leading the majority to reverse the ruling and vacate the lower court's injunction against that part of the ordinance.

Judge James Loken wrote that the plaintiffs failed to show the law was intended to discriminate against Latinos or that it intrudes on federal law.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they will confer with their clients before determining whether to ask the full 8th Circuit to review to the case.

The ruling appears counter to decisions in other courts on similar local laws, said Aaron Siebert-Llera, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund who represented several U.S.-born Latino home renters and a Fremont landlord who challenged the ordinance.

Siebert-Llera noted that two other federal appeals courts ruled against the communities of Farmers Branch, Texas and Hazelton, Pa., which have similar laws targeting landlords and employers to dissuade them from renting to or hiring people in the country illegally. Both cities have appeals pending before the full federal circuit courts.

"You've got the U.S. Senate passing sweeping immigration reform. You've got this huge, nationwide change going on," he said. "Then you have a decision like this coming out."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which also sued over Fremont's ordinance, bashed the 8th Circuit opinion.

"The court majority failed to recognize that Fremont's attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the city's borders is not only un-American, it's unconstitutional," said Jennifer Chang Newell, an attorney for the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.

Eighth Circuit Judge Steven Colloton agreed with the reversal and vacating of the injunction, but said the plaintiffs lacked standing in the case, meaning they did not show how they had been or could be harmed by Fremont's law.

Siebert-Llera took issue with that opinion, noting that one of the plaintiffs showed she was forced to buy a mobile home, because she could not find anyone who would rent to in Fremont.

In a dissent, Judge Myron Bright agreed with the lower court that parts of the ordinance interfere with federal law.

"The ordinance will impose a distinct burden on undocumented persons by preventing them from renting housing in Fremont," Bright wrote. "This denial of rental housing is paramount to removal from the city. And, as the Supreme Court has made clear, removal is entrusted exclusively to the federal government."

Kris Kobach, a Kansas attorney who represented Fremont and helped draft its ordinance and others around the country, lauded Friday's opinion and said it will have implications for both Farmers Branch and Hazelton as appeals courts look at their ordinances.

"And I think it has indirect implications for cities all across the country, and certainly cities in Nebraska, that may wish to take similar steps to stop the negative effects of illegal immigration," Kobach said.

Kobach said as soon as next week, the city will begin enforcing the part that requires all renters in the city to apply for an occupancy permit and denies those permits to people not legally in the country.

The ordinance stirred a whirlwind of controversy in June 2010, when roughly 57 percent of Fremont voters who turned up at the polls supported it. The measure catapulted the city into the national spotlight and spurred comparisons with Arizona and other cities embroiled in the debate over immigration regulations.

Fremont, about 35 miles northwest of Omaha, has seen its Hispanic population surge in the past two decades, largely due to the jobs available at two meatpacking plants just outside the city. Census data show the number of Hispanics soared from 165 in 1990 to 3,149 in 2010.

It's unknown how many immigrants not legally in the country may live in Fremont. According to census figures, 1,259 noncitizens live there, but that figure includes people living in the U.S. legally.

Fremont city officials declined to comment Friday, saying they wanted time to review the ruling. Read more about Federal panel: Neb. city's immigration law legal

Children walk across the U.S.-Mexico border with crystal methamphetamine strapped to their backs or concealed between notebook pages. Motorists disguise liquid meth in tequila bottles, windshield washer containers and gas tanks.

The smuggling of the drug at land border crossings has jumped in recent years but especially at San Diego's San Ysidro port of entry, which accounted for more than 40 percent of seizures in fiscal year 2012. That's more than three times the second-highest _ five miles east _ and more than five times the third-highest, in Nogales, Ariz.

The spike reflects a shift in production to Mexico after a U.S. crackdown on domestic labs and the Sinaloa cartel's new hold on the prized Tijuana-San Diego smuggling corridor.

A turf war that gripped Tijuana a few years ago with beheadings and daytime shootouts ended with the cartel coming out on top. The drugs, meanwhile, continue flowing through San Ysidro, the Western hemisphere's busiest land border crossing with an average of 40,000 cars and 25,000 pedestrians entering daily.

"This is the gem for traffickers," said Gary Hill, assistant special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego. "It's the greatest place for these guys to cross because there are so many opportunities."

Customs and Border Protection officers seized 5,566 pounds of methamphetamine at San Ysidro in the 2012 fiscal year, more than double two years earlier, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit. On the entire border, inspectors seized 13,195 pounds, also more than double.

From October 2012 through March, seizures totaled 2,169 pounds at San Ysidro and 1,730 pounds at Otay Mesa, giving San Diego 61 percent of the 6,364 pounds seized at Mexican border crossings. Much of the rest was found in Laredo, Texas; Nogales; and Calexico, Calif.

San Ysidro _ unlike other busy border crossings _ blends into a sprawl of 18 million people that includes Los Angeles, one of the nation's top distribution hubs. By contrast, El Paso is more than 600 miles from Dallas on a lonely highway with Border Patrol checkpoints.

Rush-hour comes weekday mornings, with thousands of motorists clogging Tijuana streets to approach 24 U.S.-bound inspection lanes on their way to school or work. Vendors weave between cars, hawking cappuccinos, burritos, newspapers and trinkets.

A $732 million expansion that has created even longer delays may offer an extra incentive for smugglers who bet that inspectors will move people quickly to avoid criticism for hampering commerce and travel, said Joe Garcia, assistant special agent in charge of ICE investigations in San Diego.

Children are caught with methamphetamine strapped to their bodies several times a week _ an "alarming increase," according to Garcia. They are typically paid $50 to $200 for each trip, carrying 3 pounds on average.

Drivers, who collect up to $2,000 per trip, conceal methamphetamine in bumpers, batteries, radiators and almost any other crevice imaginable. Packaging is smothered with mustard, baby powder and laundry detergent to fool drug-sniffing dogs.

Crystals are increasingly dissolved in water, especially during the last year, making the drug more difficult to detect in giant X-ray scanners that inspectors order some motorists to drive through. The water is later boiled and often mixed with acetone, a combustible fluid used in paints that yields clear shards of methamphetamine favored by users. The drug often remains in liquid form until reaching its final distribution hub.

The government has expanded X-ray inspections of cars at the border in recent years, but increased production in Mexico and the Sinaloa cartel's presence are driving the seizures, Garcia said. "This is a new corridor for them," he said.

The U.S. government shut large methamphetamine labs during the last decade as it introduced sharp limits on chemicals used to make the drug, causing production to shift to Mexico.

The U.S. State Department said in March that the Mexican government seized 958 labs under former President Felipe Calderon from 2006 to 2012, compared with 145 under the previous administration. Mexico seized 267 labs last year, up from 227 in 2011.

As production moved to central Mexico, the Sinaloa cartel found opportunity in Tijuana in 2008 when it backed a breakaway faction of the Arellano Felix clan, named for a family that controlled the border smuggling route for two decades. Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, had long dominated nearby in eastern California and Arizona.

Tijuana registered 844 murders in 2008 in a turf war that horrified residents with castrated bodies hanging from bridges. After the Sinaloa cartel prevailed, the Mexican border city of more than 2 million people returned to relative calm, with 332 murders last year and almost no public displays of brutality.

Alfonzo "Achilles" Arzate and his younger brother Rene, known as "The Frog," have emerged as top Sinaloa operatives in Tijuana _ the former known as the brains and the latter as the brawn. The elder Arzate has been mentioned on wire intercepts for drug deals as far as Chicago, Hill said.

He appears to have gained favor with the Sinaloa cartel brass after another cartel operative raided one of his warehouses in October 2010, leading to a shootout and the government seizing 134 tons of marijuana.

Methamphetamine has also turned into a scourge throughout Tijuana, becoming the most common drug offense for dealers and consumers in the last five years, said Miguel Angel Guerrero, coordinator of the Baja California state attorney general's organized crime unit.

"It has increased a lot in the city because it's cheaper than cocaine, even cheaper than marijuana," he said.

Disputes among street dealers lead to spurts of violence in Tijuana, said Guerrero, including April's murder tally of 56 bodies. But the killings pale in numbers and brutality compared to the dark days of 2008 and 2009. While president, Calderon hailed Tijuana as a success story in his war on cartels.

"The Sinaloa cartel, their presence here has been strong enough to the point that no one is pushing back," said the DEA's Hill. "They just simply want to focus on making money and moving the dope across."
  Read more about Meth floods US border crossing

According to Sen. John McCain, a member of the Senate’s Gang of Eight, criminals will not be legalized under the proposed bipartisan immigration bill.

“Anyone who has committed crimes in this country is going to be deported,” the Arizona Republican declared on the Senate floor last week.

However, as Washington Examiner columnist Byron York recently reported, “the bottom line is an immigrant could have more than three misdemeanor convictions in his background check and still qualify for legalization.”

Furthermore, the following chart published June 21 by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit organization that opposes liberalization of immigration law, compares the consequences for an array of crimes and discovered that while illegal immigrants might be exonerated and legalized, U.S. citizens and legal immigrants face years of incarceration or temporary expulsion from the country.

The Gang of Eight’s bill would allow illegal immigrants who entered the country before Dec. 31, 2011, and committed up to three misdemeanor offenses including but not limited to assault, battery, identity or document fraud, tax evasion, to remain eligible for Registered Provisional Status. Meanwhile, U.S. citizens and persons who entered the country legally could incur up to $100,000 in fines,15 years of imprisonment, or be prohibited to reenter the country for up to 10 years.

  Read more about Illegal immigrants who commit crimes face lesser punishment than U.S. citizens

There’s a storm gathering around one of the provisions in the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, but it needs to gather faster, because the amnesty shill are ramming this thing through Congress faster than they’d ever consider moving on a bill that would actually help American citizens – say, by reducing the tax and regulatory burden on the private sector to spur job growth. Anyone who thought Congress was a lumbering dinosaur incapable of swift, decisive action can only marvel at the speed they’re moving on amnesty.

One of the reasons for that speed is that Gang of Eight proponents don’t want the American people to know what’s in the bill – the same way they didn’t want us to read the last bill they passed in a blind haste, ObamaCare. (And look how that’s working out.) If we have time to study the bill, we’ll notice things like the provision that waves drunk-driving illegal aliens right to the head of the line for legalization, ahead of all those poor chumps who have been struggling to legally comply with America’s immigration laws.

Kurt Schlicter blew a gasket over this today, noting that the immigration bill allows three strikes for drunk-driving illegal aliens before the government will even think about deporting them – and even then, deportation can (and will) be waived at the discretion of the bureaucracy.

For the Gang of 8, the choice is clear. If it’s a choice between the lives of your kids and keeping the coalition together behind their immigration reform scam, your kids lose.

Under the Gang of 8’s plan, you can stay in America legally – and become a citizen – even if you are a chronic drunk driver.

Their immigration bill is packed with obnoxious features – the “path to citizenship,” the entitlement giveaways, the utterly toothless “border security” lies – yet this one dwarfs them all in terms of pure, shameful cynicism. That the Gang of 8 is perfectly willing to let American kids (and, for that matter, immigrant kids) die seems like a harsh charge. But conservatives must judge policies not upon the vague, amorphous intentions expressed by their proponents but by their real-world consequences.

The real-world consequence of this immigration reform bill will be more dead kids. Maybe yours.

Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller noted last week that Senator John Cornyn’s (R-TX) amendment to the immigration bill (which ended up getting defeated) would have barred illegal aliens with misdemeanor DUI convictions from entering the legalization process… and according to Kaus’ sources, that’s a big, but secret, reason the Democrats hated Cornyn’s amendment:

Pro-Gang Democrats (and Republicans) understandably don’t want to publicize their DUI defense. DUI offenders are not an inherently popular group, and accidents in which undocumented immigrant drivers kill innocent civilians tend to be well publicized. It’s not a coincidence that Obama’s executive mini-amnesty of so-called “Dreamers”–issuedbefore the 2012 election–claimed to exclude DUI offenders. But the broader Gang of 8 legislation, written after the election, allows two free misdemeanors–apparently including DUIs–before an illegal immigrant is disqualified. (If you search the Gang of 8 text for “intoxicated,” you will discover only provisions related to “habitual” drunk drivers–defined as “[a]n alien convicted of 3 or more offenses on separate dates related to driving under the influence or driving while intoxicated.” [Emphasis added])

The DUI issue may be a sort of Ninth Planet affecting the immigration debate in a way that’s invisible to most of the MSM’s reporters. It would certainly help explain some of the vehement Gang of 8 opposition to Cornyn’s amendment, which otherwise doesn’t seem all that different from what the Gang has proposed. …

This all seems insane to the casual observer, but it’s actually pretty straightforward: as Kaus surmises, “For the pro-amnesty side, the exclusion of DUI offenders is apparently a deal-killer. There must be a lot of them!” The goal of this bill is to import a new electorate that appeals to the ruling class, and cheap labor for the Big Business types. Rules that would keep a sizable number of applicants from boarding the Amnesty Express cannot be tolerated. A lot of the offenders have families (which they are endangering when they drive drunk, of course.) If the family enters the “pathway to citizenship” but Dad’s a DUI offender and isn’t eligible, what happens to the family? Especially since the family’s application would expose Drunk Driving Dad to detection, and deportation, by the government that hasn’t bothered looking for him until now?

Schlicter relates the story of how he was once on a DUI jury for an obviously guilty drunk driver from Central America, but it ended in a hung jury because “one idiot woman dressed like a flower child’s bad trip” refused to vote guilty, on the grounds that “maybe it’s not wrong in his culture.” Blogger Maetenloch at Ace of Spades notes there might be some truth to that assertion, backed up by an NPR piece from several years ago on the high incidence of drunk driving among young men who have recently immigrated to the U.S. from South America:

While NPR tries to portray the DUI problem as purely situational, the real issue is that in rural Mexican culture drinking-and-driving doesn’t have the same stigma it does here and in fact it’s considered part of machismo to always be able to handle your drink. Which means never admitting you’re too drunk to jump in your truck and drive home.

The end result is that illegal aliens are responsible for a wildly disproportional number of DUI arrests as well DUI-related crashes, hit-and-runs and fatalities. So much so that a special exception has been added to an already generous amnesty bill to keep widespread DUI arrests from gumming up the illegals’ legalization process.

To make the grisly farce complete, Mothers Against Drunk Driving apparently has no problem with leaving illegal alien drunk drivers on the streets. Here’s an example of what immigration politics have helped MADD grow comfortable with, from The Times of New Jersey:

Trenton resident Jorge DeLeon of Elm Street was killed early yesterday morning during a head-on crash with an alleged drunken driver; the accident also seriously wounded DeLeon’s two young passengers, officials said.

The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office has filed charges against the other driver, including death by auto and DWI.

Sgt. Adam Grossman, a spokesman for the N.J. State Police, said DeLeon was driving northbound on Route 29 near the Route 129 exit in a Nissan Quest with a 6-year-old male and a 4-year-old female just before 3:30 a.m. “They were struck head on by a vehicle traveling in the wrong direction,” he said.

DeLeon was pronounced dead at the scene, State Police said.

[...] The other vehicle, a Dodge Durango, was driven by Manuel Gutierrez Vazquez, 27, a resident of the 1500 block of Collins Road in Camden. He suffered a fractured right arm in the crash, and was transported to Capital Health Reigonal Medical Center.

Onofri said Vazquez has been charged with DWI, one count of death by auto, two counts of assault by auto and one count of causing death or serious injury while unlicensed. He also said that Vazquez is not in the United States legally, and has never possessed a U.S. driver’s license.

He also said Vazquez was arrested a few weeks ago in Texas for drunken driving.

Vazquez was released from the hospital and lodged at Mercer County Correctional Center in lieu of bail, which was set by Superior Court Judge Patrick McManimon at $250,000 cash.

That’s only two strikes. Unless there’s more on his record, this guy’s still eligible for amnesty. Of course, the government obviously has no interest in deporting him, even without the Gang of Eight bill.

The entire political class is drunk on amnesty as it drives America toward the guard rails of citizenship, foot planted firmly on the accelerator, screaming “Shut up!” at the frightened passengers in the back seat. The interests of existing citizens are not a factor, in any area from economics to public safety. On the topic of drunk drivers, we should be moving in the opposite direction. Not only should there be zero tolerance for drunk drivers in any immigration bill… how about stripping citizenship from native-born multiple DUI offenders and deporting them? Read more about Drunk on amnesty

(CNSNews.com) - The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to “unauthorized” alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

That was not the only Atlanta address theoretically occupied by thousands of “unauthorized” alien workers receiving millions in federal tax refunds in 2011. In fact, according to a TIGTA audit report published last year, four of the top ten addresses to which the IRS sent thousands of tax refunds to “unauthorized” aliens were in Atlanta.

The IRS sent 11,284 refunds worth a combined $2,164,976 to unauthorized alien workers at a second Atlanta address; 3,608 worth $2,691,448 to a third; and 2,386 worth $1,232,943 to a fourth.

Other locations on the IG’s Top Ten list for singular addresses that were theoretically used simultaneously by thousands of unauthorized alien workers, included an address in Oxnard, Calif, where the IRS sent 2,507 refunds worth $10,395,874; an address in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the IRS sent 2,408 refunds worth $7,284,212; an address in Phoenix, Ariz., where the IRS sent 2,047 refunds worth $5,558,608; an address in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where the IRS sent 1,972 refunds worth $2,256,302; an address in San Jose, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,942 refunds worth $5,091,027; and an address in Arvin, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,846 refunds worth $3,298,877.

Since 1996, the IRS has issued what it calls Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to two classes of persons: 1) non-resident aliens who have a tax liability in the United States, and 2) aliens living in the United States who are “not authorized to work in the United States.”

The IRS has long known it was giving these numbers to illegal aliens, and thus facilitating their ability to work illegally in the United States. For example, the Treasury Inspector General’s Semiannual Report to Congress published on Oct. 29, 1999—nearly fourteen years ago—specifically drew attention to this problem.

“The IRS issues Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to undocumented aliens to improve nonresident alien compliance with tax laws. This IRS practice seems counter-productive to the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS) mission to identify undocumented aliens and prevent unlawful alien entry,” TIGTA warned in that long-ago report.

The inspector general’s 2012 audit report on the IRS’s handling of ITINs was spurred by two IRS employees who went to member of Congress "alleging that IRS management was requiring employees to assign Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) even when the applications were fraudulent.”

In an August 2012 press release accompanying the audit report, TIGTA said the report “validated” the complaints of the IRS employees.

“TIGTA’s audit found that IRS management has not established adequate internal controls to detect and prevent the assignment of an ITIN to individuals submitting questionable applications,” said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George. “Even more troubling, TIGTA found an environment which discourages employees from detecting fraudulent applications.”

In addition to the 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 that the IRS sent to a single address in Atlanta, the IG also discovered that the IRS had assigned 15,796 ITINs to unauthorized aliens who presumably resided at a single Atlanta address.

The IRS, according to TIGTA, also assigned ITINs to 15,028 unauthorized aliens presumably living at a single address in Dallas, Texas, and 10,356 to unauthorized aliens presumably living at a single address in Atlantic City, N.J.

Perhaps the most remarkable act of the IRS was this: It assigned 6,411 ITINs to unauthorized aliens presumably using a single address in Morganton, North Carolina. According to the 2010 Census, there were only 16,681 people in Morganton. So, for the IRS to have been correct in issuing 6,411 ITINS to unauthorized aliens at a single address Morganton it would have meant that 38 percent of the town’s total population were unauthorized alien workers using a single address.

TIGTA said there were 154 addresses around the country that appeared on 1,000 or more ITIN applications made to the IRS. Read more about IRS Sent 46,378,040 in Refunds to 23,994 ‘Unauthorized’ Aliens at 1 Address

A well known fact, most of the illicit drugs killing Oregonians are produced, manufactured and smuggled into the state by drug cartels operating out of Mexico.

On June 4th the Oregon Medical Examiner (OME) reported 223 deaths in 2012 were caused by the illicit drugs; the preceding number of drug deaths being third highest number since 2002. The types of drugs by the numbers that killed 223 of the state’s residents last year were 147 from heroin, 19 from cocaine, 93 from methamphetamine or 33 from a combination of the preceding drugs.

When it came to illicit drug related deaths in the state last year, according to the OME, Multnomah County had the dubious distention of leading all 36 Oregon counties with 103 illicit drug related deaths (80 heroin, 15 cocaine, 28 methamphetamine or 18 from a combination of drugs).

Putting these numbers into perspective, Multnomah County residents are approximately 19.05 percent of Oregon’s population of 3.83 million, yet the county experienced 46.13 percent of the states illicit drug deaths.

Not only last year, but over the last seven years Multnomah has led all Oregon counties in OME reported illicit drug related deaths by number and percentage:

- 2006 the county had 95 drug deaths (44.60 percent);
- 2007 the county had 101 drug deaths (47.64 percent);
- 2008 the county had 106 drug deaths (46.28 percent);
- 2009 the county had 94 drug deaths ( 44.13 percent);
- 2010 the county had 87 drug deaths (43.50 percent);
- 2011 the county had 119 drug deaths (49.58 percent);
- 2012 the county had 103 drug deaths (46.13 percent).

Totaling the preceding numbers from seven years of OME reports, Multnomah County had 705 of the 1,530 illicit drug related deaths recorded in the state; 46.08 percent of the states drug deaths.

Moving beyond the OME report’s body counts, a look at the current Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) prison population gives a picture of who is most likely dealing the drugs killing the state’s residents.

On May 1st in the DOC prison system there were 166 foreign nationals (prisoners with immigration detainers) incarcerated for drug crimes, 151 of those prisoners declared their country of origin being Mexico, that’s 91.00 percent of the foreign nationals in prison for drug crimes.

Locally, cases adjudicated in Multnomah County Circuit Courts have sent 46 Mexican nationals (30.46 percent of Mexicans convicted in the state for drug crimes) to serve time in DOC prisons.

A reasonable solution, to reduce future drug deaths, to keep the Mexican drug cartels in-check, to keep the drug cartels from easily distributing cartel drugs, drugs that are killing far too many of the county’s residents, Multnomah County’s elected officials, the county commissioners and sheriff, shouldn’t equivocate about providing the resources to enforce of the state’s drug laws.

Furthermore, the county commissioners and sheriff should put aside any pretense of political correctness about offending the county’s Hispanic community, many whom are undocumented residents, and fully cooperate with all federal law enforcement agencies, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agency, because the illicit drugs poisoning and killing the county’s residents don’t discriminate against any one communities race, religion, country of origin or immigration status.

David Olen Cross of Salem writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. Read more about Multnomah County: Mexican Drug Cartels Issue a Prescription of Death

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., June 5 (UPI) -- The governor of Florida has vetoed a "well-intentioned" bill that would have allowed children of undocumented immigrants to get temporary drivers' licenses.

The "Dream Act Driver License" bill had passed through both chambers of the Legislature with only two dissenting votes, The Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reported Tuesday.

The bill used as its foundation a 2012 policy of the Obama administration that suspended for two years deportation actions against children illegally brought to the United States by their parents.

Gov. Rick Scott said lawmakers were "well-intentioned" in approving the measure, but that "it should not have been done by relying on a federal government policy adopted without legal basis."

Scott said the Obama policy did not have the force of law, noting that Florida law already allows non-citizens with federal work permits to get temporary drivers licenses.

Sen. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, called the governor's veto "simply unconscionable," adding that Scott had "missed an opportunity."

Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, a former Florida state legislator, said the lack of citizenship does not prevent anyone from practicing any profession regulated by the state.

"Somebody in Florida who is not yet a citizen can get a doctor's license but not a driver's license," he said. "How absurd can we be?" Read more about Florida governor vetoes 'Dream Act' driver's license bill