DL problem leaves immigrants hanging

A temporary driver’s license program, which the Bredesen administration and the Legislature set up last year, is causing transportation problems for hundreds of legal immigrants in Tennessee.

Lawmakers and the administration have legislation on the fast track to correct the problem.

The temporary driver’s license was established to replace the much-maligned certificate for driving system, which had come under fire for its lack of safeguards for preventing illegal immigrants from having driving privileges.

The problem with it occurred through an oversight.

The bill to establish the driver’s license program — submitted in Gov. Phil Bredesen’s legislative package last year — allows a legal immigrant to get a temporary driver’s license in Tennessee if he or she is going to be in the country for a minimum of one year and a maximum of five years.

If that legal immigrant applies for a temporary driver’s license and has a visa that expires in less than one year, he or she is ineligible to receive that license under the law.

“No one thought about what that meant and how it would impact the administration of the law,” said Linda Rose, a Nashville immigration attorney.

The state has had to turn away “several hundred” people who fall into the less-than-one year category, which have included college professors, doctors, students and migrant workers, said Elizabeth Merkel, a legislative liaison for the Department of Safety.

Rose said she has a client who is a heart surgeon and has a visa classified for foreign nationals with “extraordinary ability.”

When he is paged for surgery at night, he has to wake up his wife and infant child to have her drive him to the hospital, Rose said.

“That was an extraordinary ability heart surgeon who was completely legal in the U.S. but couldn’t get a license under the state law,” Rose said.

State lawmakers and the Bredesen administration are trying to rectify the error.

The Senate Transportation Committee unanimously approved a bill Wednesday to allow a temporary driver’s license to be given to those legal immigrants authorized to be in the country for less than one year. It is now headed to the Senate floor.

The bill would “clean-up” last year’s error, Merkel said.

“This says, if you’re here for 10 months or 11 months, we can let you drive legally with the convenience of a Tennessee driver’s license for the duration of your stay,” Merkel said.

Members of the Senate Transportation Committee gave the bill its quick approval with limited discussion.

“It was really just an omission,” said Sen. Jim Tracy (R-Shelbyville), the chairman of the Transportation Committee, a panel the bill that established the temporary license program went through last year.

The bill is scheduled for the House Transportation Committee next week.