Senate Bill 139 hopes to end problems with driver’s license program for undocumented residents

     A bill introduced in the Senate in the past week could end the five-year-long debacle over the problems with the state’s driver’s license program for undocumented residents.
     Republican Sen. Don Coram of Montrose, along with Democratic Sen. Dominick Moreno of Commerce City, are sponsoring Senate Bill 139.
     As introduced, the bill would expand the number of motor vehicle offices available to take first-time appointments for undocumented residents who want to get a driver’s license.
     The program has been in place since a 2013 bill, but it’s been a political football for its duration.
     The 2013 legislation required undocumented residents to make appointments at one of five motor vehicle offices — Grand Junction, Colorado Springs, Denver, Fort Collins and Aurora — provided they could bring the following documentation:  
     — An individual taxpayer ID number (which can be granted to an undocumented resident) or Social Security number.
     — An affidavit stating the applicant will seek lawful residency in the United States;
     — An affidavit declaring the applicant is a resident of Colorado and has been for two years.
     — A passport, consular ID card or military ID card.
     However, since the program’s launch in 2014, the Fort Collins office has been shuttered. The Denver office is no longer available, but another in Lakewood was added. The Aurora office now handles only renewals.
     The original fiscal analysis estimated there were 200,000 undocumented residents in Colorado and that about a third would seek those driver’s licenses. The bill was backed by public safety officials, who claimed the law would reduce the number of uninsured drivers.
     But in 2018-19, conservative budget writers on the Joint Budget Committee added a footnote that capped the number of license appointments at 66,000. Once that cap was reached, the Colorado Springs and Grand Junction offices would be closed, and first-time appointments could be made only at the Lakewood office.
     The lack of offices, and a byzantine process for getting those appointments, led scammers and con artists to come up with a way to grab the appointments and then sell them to the highest bidder, sometimes as much as $1,000.
     Coram’s bill would expand the number of offices to at least 10, to be geographically distributed statewide. But Coram told this reporter he also intends to strike down the 66,000 cap, which the Division of Motor Vehicles has said could be reached by June.
     Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling supports Coram’s bill for the expanded ability to get appointments but for another reason. He told this reporter that having offices all over the state will not only cut down on the scammers, it also will give the state a better sense of where undocumented residents live.
     “My frustration” has been with the “brokers” who have been taking the appointments, Sonnenberg told this reporter. People on the eastern plains can’t get appointments unless they go through a broker, and then it’s most often a trip to Grand Junction, which is the only place that has available appointments, he said.
     But Sonnenberg believes Coram’s bill doesn’t go far enough on the number of motor vehicle offices. Sonnenberg said he’d prefer to see every motor vehicle office in the state with the ability to offer those first-time appointments. “If you want to know where immigrants are, give them a license,” he added.
     The law is in place to grant those licenses, Sonnenberg said. “Why make it difficult for them to get those licenses and so we know where they are?”

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