Last year, when Governor Jan Brewer announced that the DREAMers who qualified for deferred action would not be allowed to obtain Arizona driver's licenses, the ACLU and other groups shot a hole right through it -- Arizona's been giving out licenses to everyone else the feds have granted deferred action for years.
Now, as Brewer faces a lawsuit that involves that very point, the Arizona Department of Transportation suddenly has a new policy -- no one granted deferred action can get a driver's license.
See also:
-Jan Brewer Broadens Hateful Driver's License Ban Beyond DREAMers
Estimates are that more than 40,000 driver's licenses and ID's were given to people in Arizona who were granted deferred action by the federal government. DREAMers -- that is, people whose parents brought them to this country illegally, when they were young -- were in that same boat, until Brewer's order came along.
Brewer's squad tried to get the lawsuit over this order dismissed, but the federal judge disagreed, saying these deferred action recipients are "similarly situated" to other non-citizens, who can obtain licenses.
As the Feathered Bastard reported, instead of Brewer admitting any fault, or seeing the light, or suddenly warming up to immigrants, the lawyers for Brewer and ADOT claimed that it was just then that ADOT "became aware for the first time" that other non-citizens granted deferred action could get driver's licenses.
Now, the new policy prevents all these non-citizens from getting licenses.
Is that complete and utter B.S.?
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Follow Matthew Hendley on Twitter at @MatthewHendley.
