Disrupting the Traffic Stop-to-Deportation Pipeline: The New York State Greenlight Law’s Intent and Implementation

In New York State (NYS), traffic stops are a major trigger for deportation despite constituting minor offenses. This article seeks to examine the repercussions of the traffic stop-to-deportation pipeline and how the so-called Greenlight Law, which permits the issuance of standard driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, can mitigate these harms. The paper analyzes how the law’s ability to protect these immigrants and their mostly US citizen children, however, depends on implementation, which some evidence suggests has been unequal across the state, and which has been complicated by the pandemic and by anti-immigrant, fear-mongering rhetoric.  The paper highlights the impact of these limitations on the children of undocumented immigrants. For example, many of them develop a strong mistrust of the police or suffer from the depletion of family income caused by the deportation of a parent. Not only has this implementation gap been driven by the pandemic, but it also continues to be fueled by reluctant enforcement of the law, political opposition, insufficient capacity to deliver services in Spanish, and trust concerns from immigrants when seeking government help. The article proposes a number of policy recommendations to address these implementation problems, including bolstering bilingual staffing at motor vehicle offices and ending the practice of segregating undocumented applicants from other motor vehicle clients and forcing the former to wait longer for service. (Flora Meng for The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute)

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