Driver’s Licenses for All? Racialized Illegality and the Implementation of Progressive Immigration Policy in California

Driver’s Licenses for All? Racialized Illegality and the Implementation of Progressive Immigration Policy in California reveals how Latinx immigrants in California have disproportionally benefited from California Assembly Bill (A.B.) 60, while other immigrant groups have struggled to gain access to its benefits. AB60 makes driver’s licenses available to unauthorized immigrants in the state. Through interviews and participant observations, the report argues that the implementation of the bill was shaped by a “racialized immigration history” that sees illegality as a Latinx, and particularly Mexican, issue in California despite the fact that Asian American and Pacific Islanders “have long been the second largest group of contemporary undocumented immigrants,” tripling in number nationally between 2000 and 2015. This grounded history led Latinx-serving organizations to strongly advocate for and serve undocumented Latinx immigrants thus improving their access to A.B. 60 driver’s licenses. The Non-Latinx communities, on the other hand, did not come forward to apply for licenses in proportion to their percentage of the undocumented population.  The authors identify various reasons for this failure, including lack of language assistance at DMV offices, weaknesses in the infrastructure of nonprofit organizations serving these communities, and lack of full cooperation from local consulates in producing identity documents. The authors also speculate that racialized policing policies disproportionally targeting Latinos may prevent Asian immigrants from coming forward. Progress has been made by immigrant-serving organizations to reracialize illegality as an issue that affects the broader immigrant community in California. Yet, as states establish additional immigrant policies in the future, these challenges must be considered in order to guarantee equal access to all immigrants. (Stephanie Depauw for The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute)

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