Arizona Gov. Brewer Refuses to Back Down on Denial of Licenses to Illegals

February 12, 2013

Take your DACA and shove it!

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she won’t change her mind and allow illegal aliens granted administrative amnesty by President Barack Obama to get driver’s licenses. And a court ruling last week has strengthened her case in doing so.

Brewer’s comments Monday came after she was asked if she would change her mind following a January “clarification” by the Department of Homeland Security. That memo says illegal aliens granted “deferred action” status (“Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals”, or DACA) are “legally in the country”.

Brewer says that didn’t impress her and she’s standing behind her August executive order barring them from getting licenses.

How typical for Obama’s lapdog media to treat a DHS “memo” as if it were an act of Congress, with the full force of law, and hammer Gov. Brewer with questions for not kowtowing to it.

Obama last July said people younger than 30 brought to the U.S. before they turned 16 could apply for “deferred action”. They will be granted work permits and Social Security numbers. As SWA detailed at the time, Obama’s amnesty order is ripe for abuse, as it has almost no safeguards against fraud.

Currently, Arizona, Iowa, and Nebraska prohibit driver’s licenses to DACA recipients, while California, Texas and Florida grant the licenses. Michigan initially denied licenses – until the DHS memo was released, whereupon they reversed course and will now grant them. North Carolina is currently waffling over whether or not to do so.

Each state must decide the issue for itself, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, which said, “At the end of the day, it’s a state-issued document, and the state has the authority to determine who is eligible for that document.”

But groups representing illegal aliens such as the ACLU (which should stand for Alien Criminals Liberation Union) don’t see it that way, and have filed suit against Gov. Brewer and Arizona.

But last week, a federal judge blocked illegal aliens in the new “deferred action” program from arguing in court that they are being “irreparably harmed” by Gov. Jan Brewer’s refusal.

Illegals in that case tried to argue that Brewer’s order ”severely frustrates their ability to obtain employment and achieve economic self-sufficiency.” But they also got the judge to agree that they could not be questioned on HOW they gained employment and HOW they managed to be driving when it was illegal to do so – likely because they knew that such scrutiny might reveal numerous other criminal activities, such as identity theft.

But the judge wisely said they can’t have it both ways – a BIG victory for Arizona’s case:

“Plaintiffs will not be permitted to argue that they were forced to drive or work illegally and that they are irreparably harmed by the inability to work or drive illegally,” the judge wrote. He said if information on how they were able to drive and get to work is off-limits to the governor, then the plaintiffs themselves cannot use it for their own legal purposes.

So once again – as with S.B. 1070 – Arizona took the lead in opposing Obama’s lawless amnesty moves for illegals, is blasted by the media for doing so and strong-armed at every turn by the Feds. But Arizona and its Governor will NOT back down when it comes to enforcing the rule of law against illegal aliens.