Mass. balks at Arizona licenses

[ChandlerJr]

Immigrants cite language barrier

State Police are investigating hundreds of people who converted Arizona driver’s licenses to Massachusetts licenses, according to a police spokesman, and since October the state has suspended the driving rights of 124 of them.

Authorities said they have not found national security or identity fraud cases, but immigrants whose language barrier kept them from getting a Massachusetts license, so they traveled to Arizona to take advantage of more flexible options.

The people whose licenses have been suspended have been called to hearings, said police spokesman David Procopio.

The pipeline from Massachusetts to Arizona has triggered a debate over how to serve hundreds of struggling refugees - legal immigrants who often have large families and need to work - while ensuring safety on the road.

Unlike Massachusetts, Arizona allows applicants to use translators to take the written test - or, more commonly in these cases, bypass it altogether if they obtain a certificate from a state-approved private driving school, where instructors often speak their languages.

Just seems weird somehow.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/09/19/massachusetts_investigates_immigrants_who_obtained_state_drivers_licenses_via_arizona/

[Warpy]

1. How funny! NM is a bilingual state that gives licenses to undocumented workers

who can demonstrate that they live here. Yet Arizona is the state with the problem.

Massachusetts laws are Byzantine, though. For a long time in the 60s and early 70s, the driving test mandated the use of an automatic transmission car with a column shift and it couldn't be rented, something that damned few people I knew had access to. I ended up getting my license in Florida and then transferring it up in Mass after I'd let it lapse for 10 years because I didn't bother driving.

That Mass. still has problems with people getting out of state licenses instead of jumping through the hoops they still have isn't at all surprising. Maybe what Mass. needs to do is look at the damn hoops.

[Lionessa]

2. I agree. The somehow = AZ having laxer licensing laws than MA. Bizarre .

[Pterodactyl]

3. Massachusetts makes it hard for immigrants.