By Daniel González and Rob O’Dell
The Arizona Republic
Gov. Jan Brewer’s executive order denying driver’s licenses and ID cards to undocumented immigrants who obtain work permits through President Barack Obama’s deferred-action program is a significant change in state policy, records obtained by The Arizona Republic show.
Over the past eight years, Arizona issued licenses and ID cards nearly 40,000 times to non-citizens who had federal employment-authorization documents. Since Brewer’s Aug. 15 order, the state has issued more than 1,000 driver’s licenses or ID cards to non-citizens with work permits while denying licenses to those with work permits issued through Obama’s program.
The data show that despite the state’s longstanding practice of issuing driver’s licenses to non-citizens with work permits, Brewer has singled out so-called dreamers, denying them driver’s licenses even when they have work permits.
