I’m the shallow kind of guy who revels in hearing about stupid people sticking it to themselves.
I love it when the nitwit tailgating you for miles on I-225 gets stuck in the slow lane after finally pulling around you. Or better yet, the snowpacked-I-70 weaving-whacko, who nearly kills dozens on a ski day, ends up in a ditch with a dented car down the road. Haha.
“There’s one jerk not on the slopes today,” my equally shallow wife would say as we both snicker and drive past, waving.
It’s not funny, however, when the moronic things that people do end up making our my lives miserable. And right now, state House and Senate Republicans are sticking it to all of us while trying to stick it to illegal immigrants.
After years of debate, Colorado finally hammered out a plan in 2013 to create driver licenses for people who aren’t U.S. citizens, but who live here as residents, AKA illegal immigrants.
The reason why is so simple even I can understand it. Whether we have driver licenses for illegal immigrants, they’re going to live here. We know that, because it’s true. It’s true here and in all the other 40 or so states that won’t let these people have driver licenses.
And guess how practical it is to not drive a car in the metro area? You got that right. They don’t call RTD the Reason To Drive for nothing. My apologies to those trying to change that. So do you think illegal immigrants don’t drive cars? Does a butthead wearing big-sunglasses in a Beemer text in the fast-lane? Damned straight these illegal immigrants drive — illegally. If they can’t get a driver license, they can’t get insurance.
My wife’s car has been whacked by illegal immigrant drivers three times in the past 20 years. Each time, no insurance. One was a nice guy. Very sorry. Uninsured, he paid for a parking lot scrape in cash. The other guys evaporated, afraid they’d get deported. It’s a story you or someone you know can repeat.
Last week, my wife had to go to a Denver traffic court after a December traffic crash because she gave the cop the wrong proof of insurance. She had to show an un-expired insurance card to get off the hook. So she shows up in court to find dozens of people there — almost all unable to speak English — were illegal immigrants without driver licenses, facing some kind of infraction. In many cases, it was the only infraction after being pulled over for no lights or driving while Mexican or something.
Because they don’t speak English, the court has to provide an interpreter. Because the interpreter doesn’t want to stay past 5 p.m., everyone who does speak English and has a driver license has to wait until the illegal immigrants are processed through. It’s a time-consuming, exasperating and expensive process.
Case after case, the stories by illegal immigrants about having to risk it to get to work, to drop off a kid at school in the snow, to take an ailing relative to the doctor, were heartbreaking.
They could have gotten driver licenses under the 2013 plan that was just gearing up, one similar to a dozen or so other states that’s solved the problem. But Colorado state House and Senate Republicans this year are so incensed that illegal immigrants would get anything, any stinking thing, that they cut the funding from the program. The next available appointment to get a license is in 2016, and only in Denver. Sucks to be a Durango illegal immigrant ready to get a license. Republicans did that even though the program is self-funding. The immigrants have to pay an additional $50 to get a license. And they have to prove they’ve applied to rectify their immigration status. If that seems like a good idea, it’s because it is.
Anything about this strike you as being especially mean and stupid? So what if they hate, hate, hate every illegal Mexican immigrant in the state? By doing an end run around the immigrant driver license program, Republicans are skewering all of us. We still have to share the roads with unlicensed, uninsured, scared drivers, because of pithy, partisan politics.
Almost every state that’s enacted these licenses have reported that insurance compliance goes up, up and up. Do you know who supported the measure? Cops. All Colorado cops know that the roads will only get safer with licensed drivers, and it won’t eat up their time and that of the courts.
The selfish, short-sighted Republican argument is that if they can’t drive, they won’t get jobs, and they’ll go home. So far? No. They drive anyway, or they find jobs without driving a car. Despite the clear and irrefutable evidence before them, these lawmakers believe that something will change after all these years and the illegal immigrants will suddenly go home. They’re not going home, Colorado. Like it or not, they live here. And when they live here without driver licenses and insurance, you pay the price.
All they get is a license to drive. The thing says in flaming print, ”Not for federal identification, voting or public benefit purposes.”
So here’s a proposition. Go ahead and fund the driver-license program again. Let every qualified illegal immigrant in the state get a license and insurance. And if it makes a Republican legislator fee better, let them pay an extra couple hundred dollars every time they get involved in a traffic situation. In return, your favorite GOP senator or rep gets to get all squinty and glare at the immigrant, snap at them to, “go home,” scream at them to, “learn some English like my Irish immigrant grampa did!” And the rest of us? We’ll drive past and laugh.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555. Follow him on twitter at @EditorDavePerry and on FaceBook. Email him at dperry@aurorasentinel.com
Dave,
If they do get a license to drive, they will still be illegal and they will still worry about being deported, and they will STILL try to get away.
Your plan solves nothing.
Report,
Verify.
Deport.
(It really is that simple)
I wonder why law enforcement is for giving licenses to these people.
Because they have a realistic view of the world and cannot hide in their 2 dimensional bubble. You know, tah terkin’ our jerbs. Or just blind hate towards immigrants. Its really been this way from the start.
“You know, tah terkin’ our jerbs. Or just blind hate towards immigrants. Its really been this way from the start.”
Please–even left-wing SWPLs don’t want their kids going to school with the children of illegal immigrants. That’s why most the population of APS is now Hispanic-dominant and the white families are doing everything in their power to get their kids in private schools and CCPS instead.
Wow an ignorant right winger speaks. You are nothing but party sheep. It’s sad really. No mention of party sides here, you’re right both sides take this attitude. Not to mention quite a bit of law enforcement leans Right. Please catch up get your head out of the sand so you can think for yourself and read the comments before you reply. The question was why does law enforcement support these efforts?
It’s hilarious that you call me ignorant and a sheep and then agree with what I said in the same paragraph. I suspect these are boilerplate insults when you encounter someone telling you something you don’t like to hear.
Yeah boilerplate for sure, when I encounter sheep I try and call them out. People like you think EVERYTHING is some liberal conservative issue. I just wish people like you could form their own opinions instead of jumping on everything because you think there is some liberal bias. It’s funny you are still not willing to answer the simple question…
“Yeah boilerplate for sure, when I encounter sheep I try and call them out.”– So you’ve been speaking to a mirror?
“People like you think EVERYTHING is some liberal conservative issue.”–Said the person whose first response to my post was to call me an ignorant right-winger, and framed their first comment on the irrelevant “jurbs” meme.
“I just wish people like you could form their own opinions instead of jumping on everything because you think there is some liberal bias.”–Funny, I didn’t mention anything about liberal bias, except for the fact that liberal parents don’t want their kids going to school with illegal immigrants–which you agreed with wholeheartedly. That bit of knee-jerk commentary about bias was all you.
“It’s funny you are still not willing to answer the simple question…”– I really don’t give a rip whether LEOs support it or not, since it’s really beside the larger point of Perry’s instinctive “Hurr Republicans bad hurr hurr hurr!” commentary. It’s rather amusing that Perry’s wife gets stuck behind a parade of illegal immigrants in court for a traffic ticket, or has her car hit three times by them, and he thinks the real problem is that they can’t get driver’s licenses. Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
“Case after case, the stories by illegal immigrants about having to risk it to get to work, to drop off a kid at school in the snow, to take an ailing relative to the doctor, were heartbreaking.” Sniff, sniff. Hey Dave, how about you offer to drive them around town so they don’t get a ticket? Maybe, you could just drive them back to Mexico so they can start the process to come here LEGALLY! Or maybe start a company something like Uber that you can make money doing it?
compassion for other human beings is sorely lacking in these comments.
How are you going to deport 11 million immigrants?
Happy you people weren’t around when my family came to the
United States.
Shame on all of you!
Emily, it’s not a lack of compassion. I didn’t say they should all be deported, only that Dave should drive them home since his wife was inconvenienced by the fact that she had to wait for so long. What I really want is for all immigrants to follow the law, nothing else. Which is what our forefathers did when they came to this country. They followed the laws in place at the time of their arrival. Yes, they are here now and our legislators need to provide them a path to citizenship, but that isn’t going to happen. We’re going to putz around for another 20 years until there is 50 million illegal immigrants. The fact that the long line of people didn’t speak English, is also part of the problem. Sure, give them a driver’s license, but remember, all the signs on the streets and highways are in English.
See Emily it wasn’t lack of compassion it was Kevin trying to be an as$ towards Dave and his wife, nothing factual just personal. Followed by pure stupidity. We have a minimum amount of English required to pass a driving test, reading street signs… showing that proficiency during the written test or driving test. The required ability for an unlicensed driver to read english, absolute 0!
Really, ez? If only you would inform yourself instead of being a part of the ignorant masses that buy into the left’s rhetoric, it would be a pleasure to debate the issues. As such, you spout your derisive and attacking comments because apparently your ‘bama phone is without reception or battery power.
Wow what a hypocritical a hole you are. I have never seen someone take the high and low road on the same comment. I don’t know if you are too stupid to read your own derisive and attacking comments or so full of sh it that you just don’t see it. Stop being a moron and think for yourself. If you can muster up a real response without adding in a racist or divisive comment maybe someone can take you serious. So how much English comprehension does an illegal alien have? Probably more than you…
You have been reported to the moderators.
Oooh, scary. I’m shaking in my immigrant boots. They don’t speak English either.
Just to show your good heart, please take these illegal immigrants to your residence and provide them with food, school, residence, and medical assistance, instead of having them relying on our welfare system and demanding other taxpayers to pay for all these costs.
Easily accomplished. After all, Germany, a much smaller country, managed to “deport” 6+ million.
Why do you mask the crime by couching it in compassion? The drain on the resources of the United States by illegal immigration is significant. Schools are overcrowded and burdened by having to accommodate illegal immigrants. Just look at one segment of illegal immigration, those from Mexico….schools must make special programs just to get them literate in English and that entails the expense of special teachers, special curriculum and printing materials in both English and Spanish. These are expensive and take away form US citizens and immigrants who have entered legally.
Why should the state taxpayers pay for the program. Increase the fees and the program will be self supporting. However, I’m against licensing illegal aliens … just deport.
So, as I understand it you want “illegal Mexican immigrants” to have drivers licenses so they will buy insurance and the next time your wife’s car is hit they will be able to pay.
What makes you think someone that broke the law and believes that breaking the law is perfectly OK is conscientious enough to buy insurance? Do you really believe that same driver that was afraid “they would be deported” will lose that fear once they have a drivers license?
My grandfather always asked me “How far can you open your mind before your brains fall out?”
Not ‘have’, they’re required to have insurance before they can get a license. No chance of your brains falling out when you’re so closed-minded.
You are correct about the insurance requirement. You fail to recognize that the illegals get the insurance only to get the proof of insurance then promptly cancel it once the need is satisfied. No chance of you understanding that when you are so closed-minded.
You know this about all illegals. Interesting! Point me to your source. In any event, they have a license, right? It’s interesting is that law enforcement supported the original legislation and supports the funding. I wonder why?
ALL IRRELEVANT…what is relevant is when you give illegals a DL that means they will/could use that license to vote….you’re letting non citizens to vote and deciding what leaders we might have cancelling American citizens votes….it’s all about flooding the country with poverty pimps so liberals can use taxpayer money to buy their vote….so you wonderful self-righteous mr perry don’t give a crap whether your vote counts.
All these comments just reinforce how racist a majority of the people are, just like the GOP senator or rep! We are all in trouble with this type of thinking.
Why do you equate illegal immigrants with being Mexican? Isn’t that contrary to the progressive mantra? Shame on you!