Sorry to those who actually like reading my blog that I have been behind and not publishing the way I should be, but a fellow writer friend of mine on the East Coast who still works for a Newspaper (you know those things we read, prior to getting news online), passed this along to me and he said you should pitch it to national publications. However, since this is my blog; I wanted to give my take on the topic.
Once again, New Mexico makes national headlines and it’s not for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta or a shooting at a local company. The one thing I have always found funny about New Mexico (I wasn’t born here, moved here in 1987) is that they seem to do things just a wee bit differently then the rest of the country. In New Mexico illegal aliens can get driver’s licenses, thanks to a law put into place by the Richardson administration back in 2003. According to an Associated Press article from November 12, this law basically said you don’t need to proof of citizenship or legal residency. So this makes you think….wait a second…..do we smell a security breach in our nations defense? Sad thing is yes, people from as far away as China have been arrested by authorities for trying to fraudulently obtain New Mexico licenses.
The AP reported last summer that three states – Washington, New Mexico and Utah had seen a uptick where immigrants were seeking ID’s (No wonder the unemployment rate in New Mexico is at 8.4 percent) All kidding aside, The AP reported that the reason this was happening is that Arizona got smart, they started cracking down on the problem.
In criminal complaints obtained by the Associated Press, Chinese nationals paid 22-year-old Gordon Leong to give them forged documents to obtain licenses from New Mexico. They tried to pull this caper off at a South Valley MVD office and New Mexico State Police were able to bust them in the act. I can at least say my tax dollars did something right on that day. All parties involved were charged with conspiracy and two others were charged with one count of altered, forged or fictitious license.
I did however laugh when I heard the comment that MVD spokesman S.U. Mahesh said to the Associated Press after the incident.
“It shows that we have a good process in place that is meant to detect any fraud or anyone trying to get a license without proper documentation,” said Mahesh in the AP article.
I personally say that they were just very lucky on that day; if the law wasn’t in place we wouldn’t have this much of an issue. New Mexico governmental leadership needs to man-up and repeal the law.
The states soon-to-be Gov. –elect Susana Martinez said she would revoke licenses under that where issued to foreign nationals under that 2003 law. So this brings to questions, how is she going to pull that off? Well, logically; she cant she needs to find ways to plug up the hole called the 458 million dollar deficit first. I hope as someone who has lived here a long time, that she doesn’t raise taxes on an already poor state. Martinez who said it herself in the campaign, she too was brought up in a family where they had to work hard for what they had. So, I think bottom-line we have a potential national security issue on our hands if something’s not done. The question is do we want another 9-11 like attack somewhere in the country and found out the people who would be associated with it gained access via New Mexico? To me, it would just be another black eye on the state.
Schoder Media 