Posted by M. Wright | Filed in: Immigration, Tennessee Politics
A letter to the CA:
I am 52, have five college degrees and two professional designations. Tonight at midnight, according to the state of Tennessee, when I drive I will become a criminal. If I can’t drive, then I also can’t work — my only choice will be to break the law.
I have spent about a third of my adult life in the United States. My wife is American-born, and I have three children who are all American citizens. In the past I have held a green card (which I surrendered when I went back to Canada to work), have worked on an H1-B visa as a university professor, and for the last two years have worked on a temporary employment authorization based on my application for a new green card. I am now in the limbo of “Adjustment of Status” whereby I am legally entitled to remain in the U.S., can apply for one-year renewals of employment authorization but cannot travel outside the country without permission and cannot receive a “real” driver’s license in Tennessee. Now I am not even able to receive a “certificate for driving” that is stamped “For driving purposes only, not valid for identification.”
In the infinite wisdom of the Tennessee legislature, I and hundreds like me, whose proof of legal status must be renewed on a regular basis, are often caught in the Catch-22 of not having documents that show an expiration date more than 365 days distant. Since my employment authorization is renewed on a yearly basis, and I don’t receive my card until after the date it becomes effective, I will never be able to receive a driver’s license on this basis until my immigration status is finalized.
In the past, as a law-abiding, legitimate spouse of a citizen I would have received my green card or permanent residence status within months. Today, however, I am one of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of aspiring American citizens who are playing by all the rules but who may never be on a “path to citizenship.”
Over a year ago I became one of the many immigration applicants whose paperwork gets placed on a pile of applications for completion of an FBI name check. Apparently, if on a computer search you are so unlucky that your name, or one like it, is identified as appearing in one of the millions of paper records maintained by the FBI you will not be cleared until some FBI agent somewhere takes the time to check the pertinent file by hand.
In today’s climate you clearly don’t have to be an illegal immigrant to be made to feel like an unwelcome immigrant. Bureaucratic inaction, inane lawmaking and political posturing and pandering won’t make America safer, but it will make many future Americans very uncomfortable, and may even threaten our ability to support ourselves and our families.
Allan Ryan
Collierville
First, I was not aware of the 365 day rule. I would say that any immigrant with a legal status should be able to get a driver’s license valid for as long as the visa or temporary status is valid. That would seem like a fairly simple fix to the situation, and one that rewards law-abiding residents rather than encouraging illegal activity.
Second, I think we need to focus on speeding up the legal immigration process for that same reason — so that legal visitors and immigrant workers won’t continue to be burdened and hassled by an inept bureaucracy while illegal immigrants basically get a free pass. We need to reduce and remove the application backlogs without sacrificing safety measures.
I would say, however, that while I sympathize with Mr. Ryan’s situation, he is presenting something of a false dichotomy. Unless he has absolutely no other means of transportation, no friends, family members or coworkers who can give him a lift, no access to cabs or buses, or no ability to travel without operating a personal vehicle, he doesn’t actually need to “become a criminal.”
Being in an unfortunate situation is not license to break the law, no matter how compassionate we might feel by looking the other way. That’s true of undocumented driving, just as it’s true of undocumented working and illegal immigration in general. Instead of temporary compassion, lawlessness and half-measures, we need smart reform, pragmatic policy and respect for both the law and the people it serves and protects.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Yeah, I stopped reading the tripe as soon as I hit, “…my only choice will be to break the law”.
It’s people like this who need to be sent packing. I don’t care if he is the Grand High Poobah of All Learned Things with 50 diplomas. By mentioning this first, is he trying to say that his education reflects his value as a potential citizen? What about his respect for the laws of the land?
I’d really have more empathy for the guy, but his attitude on choice and law in America is exactly what we don’t need more of in this nation.
Actually, I read the whole thing. He’s gotta go.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
If he’s been here so long and he intends to stay here, why has he not become an American citizen already?
Of course, I say that and then one day I may be asking why my daughter and her husband and my grandchild want to become Canadian citizens…but if that is where they choose to live out the rest of their lives, so be it.
February 4th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I usually agree with you, and basically do this time as well, but his complaint is valid. The same thing happened when my brother-in-law went from being a graduate student on a student visa to an immigrant with a permanent visa. It took nearly a year for the extremely slow, disorganized federal government to complete his paperwork to give him the new visa. During that time, his license expired leaving him unable to get a new one. Plus, whatever temporary paperwork he had expired forcing his company to lay him off until his visa could be finalized. They had to unless he wanted to break the law.
Also, it’s easy for people like us to say, “well he could just get someone to give him a ride. He doesn’t have to drive illegally.” But we have rarely been without a car since we have been adults. When we have, it has been only briefly and it was an enormous hassle when it was happening. Luckily, he and my sister worked for the ame company. Otherwise, it is very difficult to find someone willing to go out of their way to pick somone up every single day for work and every tme they need to leave the house.
Anf you are right in saying that these are signs that immigration laws need to be reformed. It’s unfortunate that being an illegal in this country is easier, cheeper, and must less risky than it is to be a legal resident.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
It is a hassle not having a car. But it can be done. My wife and I shared a car for nine months in 2006, with us working on opposite sides of the city. Of course, I was driving it myself, so it’s not a perfect comparison.
What we agree on is that there’s a problem and it needs to be fixed.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Mike said: “It’s people like this who need to be sent packing….. What about his respect for the laws of the land?”
I simply do not understand this absolute, inflexible and unreasonable “respect” for laws. Laws are rules that reflect society’s general consensus on how we should act, as expressed through an often flawed lobbying, drafting, and enforcement effort. They are not divine, infallible commands. In short, they are distinct from morals. Breaking a law does not make one immoral - in fact, it can be a very moral action (think Martin Luther King’s peaceful protests or Schindler’s efforts in Germany).
In other cases, breaking the law is simply a moral non-event. Speeding isn’t (typically) immoral, although it may be dangerous. Similarly, we require individuals to have licenses so as to protect property and lives - not because it is immoral to drive without a piece of plastic in your wallet.
Mike falsely equates willful breaking of a law with disrespect for the principles of Law. The mere suggestion of extra-legal action has incensed him so much that he wishes the person to be uprooted from the country where he has made a life. Such a shallow understanding of the law strikes me as willful ignorance and such a callousness for others actually strikes me as immoral.
Mike is either a hypocrite or a perfectly law abiding citizen. If the former, perhaps some humility is in order. If the latter, congratulations - and condolences, as it must be lonely being the sole prison warden in a country full of criminals.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Mike isn’t writing letters to the editor saying that bad traffic laws are the cause of his (assumed) disobedience; if Mike violates the speed limit, that is his choice, nobody has forced him to do it.
If someone were to classify himself as a speeder and report that he has no choice but to break the law because of unbearably low speed limits, I would say the same thing: you do have a choice, you’ve chosen to break the law, and if the laws are bad, the solution is to work at getting them fixed, and not just ignore the law, fail to take responsibility for your own actions, and advertise your disobedience.
A driver’s license catch-22 for certain immigrants is not slavery, it is not jim crow, it is not a Jewish ghetto, and it is not the holocaust. It’s just a bad law that needs to be reformed.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Of course the license catch-22 isn’t jim crow. But it is LIKE jim crow. Those blacks didn’t HAVE to ride in the front of the bus; they didn’t HAVE to eat in the white’s only diner. They could have stuck to letter writing campaigns, or hey, moved north.
But they disobeyed, because “advertising disobedience” to unjust laws is a historically proven way to “work at getting them fixed.”
True, the author doesn’t “have” to violate the law. But the author isn’t avoiding responsibility for his own actions by saying this. His use of “have” is a slightly hyperbolic way of stating that his most rational choice is to violate the law, and he doesn’t like it. If there was a gun to my head, I don’t “have” to give over my wallet, but I’d be dumb not to. Taking the author’s premise as a given (which we must do, as we have no additional evidence), not driving means not working. Does taking that calculated risk - a possible fine, in exchange for keeping one’s job - really demonstrate a cavalier attitude toward the law of the land? No, it doesn’t. The author’s primary point is that the law is perverse because the rational choice is to violate it.
In fact, the letter is evidence that the author respects the law; a scofflaw wouldn’t spend time protesting a law - they’d simply ignore it.
I suspect that Mike wouldn’t advocate deporting U.S. citizens who drive without a license. Would he consider them to be scofflaws? If not, why hold legal residents to a higher standard? I propose that
Mike’s comment is proof that “[i]n today’s climate you clearly don’t have to be an illegal immigrant to be made to feel like an unwelcome immigrant.”
February 5th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
But again, this situation is nothing like being mugged at gunpoint or being discriminated against because of your skin color. It’s a mere inconvenience, and his claim that no other alternative is available to him is totally unsubstantiated.
There are lots of people in inconvenient situations, some of them caused by inept government, some of them caused by their own actions, some caused by chance, some occurring naturally, some caused by others’ neglect, incompetence or malice and still others by some combination of these.
When government is at fault, the laws need to be reformed. In some extraordinary cases, there may be no real choice but to break the law, as with certain emergency situations when one’s life is on the line — I will grant you that. This is not one of those cases; this is a case of mere inconvenience and the need for a slight adjustment to the law to close a loophole, a technicality that needs to be fixed.
Going forward from that point of agreement, my focus is what’s the best solution.
The best solution is not for every man to do only as he pleases. The best solution is not for everyone to individually determine which laws are moral and which laws apply to them. The best solution is not to violate the law, to ignore violations of the law, or to selectively enforce the law. The best solution is not one-time fixes, band-aids and comb-overs. The best solution is not lawlessness and anarchy. The best solution is not flagrant violation of the law and the shirking of one’s own responsibility.
The best solution in a cooperative, representative, free democracy, is to respect the law and those it protects enough to follow and enforce it — and when necessary to reform it through the proscribed, legal process instituted by our constitution and form of government.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
On that last point, I want to add that while I certainly don’t agree with Mike’s call for deportation (if you want to take it at face value), it’s pretty obvious why non-citizens might commonly be held to a higher standard as far as being in compliance with established law. Normally, one doesn’t immigrate to another nation only to complain about one’s treatment in that adopted nation and openly violate their laws. I think people expect a greater level of humility from them, whether that’s exactly fair or not. I don’t think Mike’s alone in his initial reaction to Mr. Ryan’s hyperbolic rhetoric.
And speaking of that, I’m pretty sure Mike is engaging in his own hyperbole. If you knew him, you’d understand. And appreciate. But it’s interesting to compare your assumptions about Mr. Ryan’s letter with your reaction to Mike’s comment.
February 6th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Well, this may have petered out a bit, but I would like to emphasize one point.
There is Law and then there is law. There laws that reflect high moral principals. Don’t murder. Don’t steal. Then there are purely administrative rules. Taxes are due on April 15th. Don’t park on the right side of the road on Tuesdays. Don’t drive without a license.
Both types of laws help society remain orderly by guiding human behavior. But clearly our “cooperative, representative, free democracy” values obedience to some laws more than others, as demonstrated by the range of penalties we impose. Otherwise, every parking ticket would result in the death penalty.
In other words, our legal system is constantly searching to control behavior while promoting justice. It wouldn’t be just to kill someone for parking illegally; nor to let a murder off the hook.
Thus, in some situations it *is* a good solution to violate the law - and the penalties we impose reflect that judgment. No one would accuse a husband caught speeding his pregnant wife to the hospital of having no respect for the law. He made the informed judgment that the chance of getting a ticket was less important than getting his wife to the hospital.
Now, you may think that in the case at hand the circumstances are not extreme enough to justify driving without a license. You might be right; you might be wrong. The facts are unavailable. But the author apparently believes that the current penalty for driving without a license is better than the consequences of not driving. If you don’t like that particular decision, perhaps you should work to raise the penalty for driving without a license. But accusing the author of a lack of respect for the Law is to inflate an administrative rule into a moral command. It turns a jaywalker into a sinner, which is convenient for moralizing but not particularly just.
February 6th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Just as a follow up illustration, you said earlier:
“If someone were to classify himself as a speeder and report that he has no choice but to break the law because of unbearably low speed limits, I would say the same thing: you do have a choice, you’ve chosen to break the law, and if the laws are bad, the solution is to work at getting them fixed, and not just ignore the law, fail to take responsibility for your own actions, and advertise your disobedience.”
You’re right, he does have a choice, and if he breaks the law he will have to pay the penalty. If he believes that, even with the penalties, speeding is worth it, on what moral basis do you condemn him?
Similarly, if I choose to always pay my credit cards late because I like the flexibility, but I pay the late fees, am I a scofflaw? Am I acting immorally?
February 6th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I’m quite fond of the way you wrote #10.
On 11, though, I don’t recall having condemned Mr. Ryan or accused him of acting immorally. My objection is his apparently cavalier, elitist attitude and the inflation of this inconvenience into a larger condemnation of… I don’t know, the law in general, the state of Tennessee, these United States. That, rather than focusing on raising awareness, building support and getting it fixed in a way that rallies us together rather than divides and accuses.