Arizona DREAMers Could Be Close To Getting Driver's Licenses

By Jude Joffe-Block
November 24, 2014

Young immigrants in Arizona appear to be one step closer to getting driver’s licenses. On Monday a federal appeals court rejected an appeal by Arizona’s governor to reconsider its earlier ruling requiring the state to issue these immigrants licenses.

The news is the latest in the lawsuit challenging Gov. Jan Brewer’s policy to deny driver’s licenses to young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children who qualified for the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Under the program, qualifying young people can receive temporary work permits and a reprieve from deportation.

Araceli Martinez-Ogluin of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents plaintiffs in the case, said Monday’s ruling means this group could begin getting licenses as early as next month.

“DACA recipients, folks whom the federal government had already decided were American in everything but status, will finally be able to be fuller members of the communities that they live in,” Martinez-Olguin said. “And part of that will be finally being able to obtain a driver’s license.”

However, the state could decide to appeal the case up to the United States Supreme Court. In an email, a spokesman for the governor said that was a possibility under consideration.

In July, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to require Arizona to begin giving DACA recipients licenses.

Plaintiffs had argued there was a pressing need to reverse the policy because they were being harmed by the inability to drive legally, since it hindered their ability to work.

Lawyers for the state had argued that plaintiffs were not actually harmed, since many of them chose to drive without a license.

After the ruling, Brewer asked a larger panel of the Ninth Circuit to review the decision, but that petition was denied on Monday.

Should the Ninth Circuit’s ruling stand, legal analysts say it will be difficult for the state to deny licenses to those who stand to benefit from Obama’s new executive action to grant work permits to unauthorized immigrants who have children who are in the country legally.