Holden addresses licenses

Hispanic Day at the Capital raises tough immigrant issues

By Iñigo Apalategui and Amaia Celorrio
Adelante staff writers

Politics and pride came together as more than 70 Hispanic leaders from all over Missouri participated in the second annual Hispanic Day at the Capital on April 8.
“What we’re doing here is establishing a tradition,” Gov. Bob Holden told the crowd assembled in his office. “I believe this state’s greatest strength is its diversity. We must seek new ways to use this strength to our advantage, and one way is to get the Hispanics more involved. Your population has more than doubled in the past 10 years, and we need to hear your voices.”
Tony Ramírez, a St. Louis attorney who helped organize the event, took the governor at his word. He is raising one of the thorniest issues involving immigration that now faces the state government: driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Tom Miller / CMSU “We want to let you know we want to work with you,” Elida Cardenas, a co-organizer of Hispanic Day at the Capital, told Gov. Bob Holden on April 8 at the governor’s office as Tony Ramírez, the other organizer, looked on. “We really appreciate that you opened the door for us.”

Holden explained to the crowd, “We are working on that, and it is our goal to get it resolved to Tony’s satisfaction…during this session, hopefully.” He indicated his support for a bill that immigrant rights groups have been pushing for more than two years.
The bill would allow immigrants to apply for a driver’s license using an individual tax identification number in place of a Social Security number. It would enable some undocumented immigrants to obtain licenses.
But later, his press secretary, Mary Still, clarified that Holden does not actually support allowing undocumented immigrants to have drivers’ licenses. Instead, she said, he is opposing a different bill that would make it harder for legal immigrants to keep their license.
Immigrant groups oppose the second bill and had great hopes that the first bill would pass, but it appears to have little chance this year, as it is still in committee.
The situation is discouraging for advocates like María L. Knapp, organizer of Manos Unidas in St. Louis. “We already tried it last year and it arrived at the Senate,” she said. “But in that chamber some voices said that the immigrants would use it to vote without having the right for it, and it didn’t pass.”
Advocates say that allowing undocumented immigrants to get a license would make Missouri’s roads safer because they would be tested and have access to insurance. But opponents say that allowing them to have a legal ID would validate their illegal presence in the country and present a threat to national security.
In fact, another pending bill would make things harder for immigrants who are here legally. This bill allows immigrants to keep their licenses only for the time the INS authorizes them to stay in the country. Their licenses would expire at the same time as their visas. This bill has already been voted on and passed by a House committee.
After the meeting with Holden and members of the House and Senate, the group spent the afternoon meeting with a lineup of officials from state departments, ranging from the Department of Economic Development to Homeland Security.
The driver’s license question came up again in a session with Carol Russell Fischer, director of the Missouri Department of Revenue. Participants from St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield and Milan reported that immigrants who had legal driver’s licenses from other states were being denied a Missouri license.
Fischer said she would try to get that problem solved. But further investigation revealed that denying immigrants a license might be legal. Under current law, a Social Security number may be required if the submitted documents are considered questionable by any office clerk or examiner.
Ramírez said the issue is reflective of a bigger problem in Missouri.
“It shows that everyone who doesn’t look like the norm and doesn’t speak perfect English is going to have problems,” he said.
Other sessions with state officials were more productive. A group of educators met with Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Assistant Commissioner Charles Brown to establish a place for Latinos at an upcoming academic summit aimed at addressing the achievement gap among minority students. Brown spoke of the need for Latinos and other minorities to work together to establish better educational opportunities for all children.
Brown said his department is working to get data from the Hispanic community to close the achievement gap.
“Some smart youngsters are being badly treated because they cannot communicate in English,” he said. “Some teachers make them feel bad, lowering their self-esteem so that sometimes they drop school.”
A different teaching style would help, according to Brown.
“Instead of Hispanic children taking ESL (English as Second Language) classes, we should bring Spanish-speaking teachers into the classroom, so that they can help regular teachers,” he said.
Brown also said that his department didn’t want to overemphasize learning English at the expense of their native tongu.e. “It’s a question of being bilingual; it’s not about getting rid of the students’ native language,” he said.