Georgia lawmakers are advancing a bill that would allow the state to add “non-citizen” to the driver’s licenses of legal residents and green card holders living in the state. While some states have similar demarcation on the licenses of undocumented immigrants, activists say the breadth of Georgia’s proposal is unprecedented. “[This] is the first time that I’ve heard of any state considering … passing this kind of divisive action,” said Naomi Tsu, referencing the bill’s focus on immigrants living here entirely lawfully. Tsu is the deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Immigrant Justice Project. “We’re pretty concerned about this idea of branding some residents with a ‘scarlet letter’.” Representative Alan Powell, who sponsored the provision, cited preventing non-citizens from registering to vote as one of the bill’s merits. “I don’t care if you’re a regional vice-president for Mercedes,” Powell said before the motor vehicles committee passed the bill, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Powell noted that for non-citizens in the US that are able to get a driver’s license, “it at least ought to have on there ‘non-citizen’”.
Georgia’s department of driver services already issues distinct licenses to non-citizens that have the words “limited term” printed on the card, according to the department. (Twelve states allow undocumented immigrants to have driver’s licenses. Georgia is not one of them.)
Tsu said: “We’ve just got to ask ourselves, ‘What good is going to come of this bill?’ … It only exists to put up differences between people.”
This isn’t the first time this sort of branding has been threatened against immigrants, though previous legislation has focused on undocumented immigrants. In 2013, the North Carolina legislature considered placing a pink stripe across licenses held by undocumented persons, but faced pushback by immigrants’ rights advocates. The bill “calls into question” Georgia’s reputation as being a welcoming state –including toward businesses, said Tsu.
Full Article: Georgia bill would allow ‘scarlet letter’ marking of non-citizen driver’s licenses | US news | The Guardian.