A bill signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis seeks to prevent undocumented immigrants who have out-of-state driver’s licenses from using them in Florida.
Undocumented immigrants have never had the right to get a driver’s license in the state, but many drive anyway.
“I have to do it. I have no other option,” an undocumented mother told NBC6 in 2017.
Since then, several states have allowed undocumented immigrants to get licenses.
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Aron J. Gibson is an attorney based in Broward.
“There are 19 states where a person can obtain a valid driver's license in that state without having to prove that they are in the United States lawfully,” Gibson said.
Before, those drivers were allowed to use those licenses in Florida but that changed July 1 when a new law went into effect rendering them invalid, including Connecticut licenses with the letters DO on it, stating they are “not for federal identification,” or licenses from Delaware than grant “driving privileges only” and are not a valid ID.
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Gibson explains that now if a police officer pulls a driver over and he or she produces one of these licenses, they’ll get a criminal traffic infraction for driving without a license, “which carries with it a maximum penalty of 60 days in jail or a $500 fine,” he said.
“You may be arrested or you may be given just a court date, which is still considered an arrest on the spot. But they're letting you go and giving you a court date. And now you're dealing with a traffic criminal case in criminal court,” Gibson added.
There’s no way of knowing exactly how many undocumented people drive in Florida.
But records obtained from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles show in July, of the almost 2 million drivers who received citations in the state, 378,346 didn’t have a valid license.
Gibson says that number will likely go up now.
“There certainly will be more of these cases because there will be people who will be driving in Florida believing that their license from another state is valid,” he said.
Gibson says it’s important to understand which licenses are no longer valid in Florida because states issue different ones for different drivers.
For example, Connecticut issues some licenses to drivers who are residents or citizens who show proof of federal ID, those are valid here in Florida. But those that the state issues to undocumented drivers who just show an electric bill and a foreign passport are not.
The list of invalid licenses is changing daily on the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles website.
