California DMV: 800,000 Undocumented Immigrants Got Driver’s Licenses Under State’s Controversial AB 60 Law In 2 Years

A controversial California law has allowed thousands of undocumented residents to obtain driver’s licenses at a time when President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office next month, vowed to crackdown on illegal immigration.

AB 60 was implemented on Jan. 1, 2015 and allowed an estimated 806,000 undocumented residents to receive driver’s licenses in the next two years, according to Department of Motor Vehicles statistics cited by Mercury News.

The month of November, which saw Trump being elected as president of the United States, also marked the issuing of 14,000 of these licenses by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California as offices remained packed with immigrants hoping to make the most of the opportunity.

“Many of them have been able to drive their kids to school and to run errands, when many times they were taking buses that would take them up to three hours to get from point A to point B,” she said. “It opened up new opportunities,” Maricela Gutierrez, executive director of immigration advocacy group, Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN), told Mercury News.

Applicants are required to prove their identity and residency in California, pass a written exam and driving test, and submit thumbprints and show proof of insurance among other prerequisites to receive a driver’s license under AB 60. The licenses distinctly mention that the card cannot be used for identification and is restricted to driving.

According to the DMV, national law enforcement agencies can access driver’s license information in some data-sharing systems but this does not include the person’s immigration status or the process by which they received the licenses.

“The California Department of Motor Vehicles takes very seriously the protection of personal information for all license holders,” the DMV reportedly said Tuesday, addressing privacy concerns.

The California law has come under scrutiny after Trump’s election as some say that AB 60 weakens immigration enforcement. Another law, AB 1461, is scheduled to come into force in 2017, automatically registering most licensed California drivers to vote, a move that critics say may lead to election fraud. Officials, however, say there are safeguards in place to avoid any such difficulty.

The DMV maintains that “the President cannot unilaterally repeal AB 60 and AB 1461.”