Immigration Reform News 2015: 'History Made In California' As Undocumented Immigrants Get Driver's License

Thousands of undocumented immigrants in California are coming in droves to various branches of the Department of Motor Vehicles (D.M.V.) to get their driver's license under a state law that provided the service starting Jan. 1.

According to the California D.M.V., it expects 1.4 million additional driver's license applications in the first three years of implementation of Assembly Bill (A.B.) 60, which was passed and signed in 2013.

Applicants must prove their identity and California residency, pass vision test, driver license knowledge test and behind-the-wheel drive test to get a driver's license.

From Jan. 2 to 5, according to the D.M.V., a total of 46,200 A.B. 60 applications were received.

One of those who got a driver's license under the new law was Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who became a poster boy for the campaign to grant American citizenship to undocumented immigrants.

Vargas, who revealed in a 2011 essay in the New York Times magazine that he was an undocumented immigrant, took his written driver's test last Jan. 5 and passed.

"History is being made in California--our country's most populous state, boasting the eighth largest economy in the world, and home to the largest population of undocumented Americans," wrote Vargas on his Facebook page last Jan. 4.

When he passed his driver's test, he was very pleased.

"One of the happiest days of my life: a real, legit, government-issued California-approved driver's license, which I did not get by lying, or keeping a secret, or living in fear," he wrote.

He said he got the "license because I am part of this community--as are my fellow undocumented Americans here in California and across the country. We are parts of your communities. This is our home, this is where we pay taxes, this is where we work, where many of us have created businesses."

Driver's license issued to undocumented immigrants are for driving only and cannot be used to "establish eligibility for employment, voter registration or public benefits."

Vargas wrote, "We've always known -- I've always known -- that we are more than pieces of papers. We are human beings. But I cannot overstate what this piece of government-issued paper -- I'll get the ID in the mail in the next two weeks -- means to me, or to my family and friends."