Tennessee is home to thousands of green card holders. Others, such as foreign students and workers, are here on temporary stays, authorized by the U.S. government.
Now, state lawmakers have revived a proposal to make all such legal migrants more easily identifiable by issuing them Tennessee identification cards that, by their color, can be easily distinguished from those belonging to U.S. citizens.
If approved as submitted in the coming months by the Tennessee General Assembly, the bill would have no effect on who is eligible for a state-issued ID. For a wholly unauthorized migrant, a Tennessee license is already off limits.
But the law — a more limited version of which died in committee in the previous legislative session — would ensure that a quick glance at a Tennessee ID card will reveal information about its owner.
“The purpose is so that people can easily distinguish between someone that’s a U.S. citizen and someone that’s not,” said a sponsor, state Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, in a phone interview Tuesday. “People don’t realize that a lot of people are here and they get a driver’s license legally, but they’re not a citizen.”
Rejecting critiques that the license would function as a “scarlet letter,” Hensley and another sponsor, state Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, said it would improve government efficiency and operations by allowing Tennesseans to obtain a state document that affirms their status as U.S. citizens — which they could then use to gain access to certain benefits.
Hensley said the proposal would improve voting security in particular. In Tennessee, voters must register weeks in advance and attest they are U.S. citizens. State officials, meanwhile, have been looking around for noncitizens to purge from the rolls. In the summer, they sent letters to thousands of registered voters, asking for proof of citizenship.
Hensley said the distinctive ID for noncitizens would make it easier for poll workers to know if someone is illegally trying to vote.
In a phone interview, Judith Clerjeune, advocacy director at the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, doubted this rational. Researchers, she said, have consistently found that established election integrity safeguards are reliable.
The proposal to issue noncitizens distinct-looking licenses “doesn’t make Tennessee safer,” she said. “It doesn’t make the lives of Tennesseans easier. It creates more work for the state. It uses more money, more resources, and allows people to be discriminated against based on their national origin.”
‘EASILY DISTINGUISHED’
As President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration touts plans for historic mass deportations of unauthorized migrants — and perhaps others, too — emboldened lawmakers in the Republican Party he’s remade are working to shape a new era of American immigration policy.
Law enforcement has been a particular area of focus.
The Chattanooga police chief recently said there is no mechanism for his staff to easily tell if someone is in the U.S. illegally.
Still, the Tennessee General Assembly early this year required law enforcement to tell federal authorities when an unauthorized migrant is in custody. And in the coming legislative session, another proposal would require law enforcement officers to transport such a person to “sanctuary cities” — if federal immigration officials don’t promptly take the person off their hands.
Debates over who should get licenses, and what they should reveal about their owner, are not new to Tennessee or Congress. One post 9/11 federal policy, for example, is set to go into effect in just a few months, when a regular state ID will no longer get domestic commercial air travelers past security; instead they will need to show an approved document like a passport or a state-issued Real ID, which has standardized eligibility requirements.
The Real ID is available to many noncitizens. And no one is technically required to get it, as states continue to offer driver’s licenses that don’t meet those federal standards — or even, for that matter, the standards of other states: As of last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the District of Columbia and 19 states issued licenses to people who could not prove lawful residency.
Tennessee is not among them. But it does issue licenses to migrants with lawful permanent residency — a group that includes many refugees, workers deemed “extraordinary,” and family to U.S. citizens.
Tennessee also issues licenses to those the federal government has said could stay in the U.S. for a specific purpose and period of time. This group includes migrants who are students, here for cultural or vocational exchange, and those with work authorization, according to the state department of safety and homeland security website.
Those in that temporarily approved migrant cohort can already be identified with a discerning look at their Tennessee ID. They are the only people who receive the state’s temporary license, said agency spokesperson Charmaine J. McNeilly in an email.
While it would not affect eligibility, Hensley and Cepicky’s proposal would order the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security to create a category of IDs for all noncitizens that “may be easily distinguished” from those issued to U.S. citizens.
Tennessee months ago began issuing redesigned ID cards. If enacted, the bill could prompt another redesign, though in the phone interview, Hensley said people would only have to get a new license when their old one expired — and that the only change would be color.
“So if someone had a license, and they were here legally but they were not a U.S. citizen, their license would be a different color,” he said. “Now, what color would that be? That would be up to the department of safety.”
Contact Andrew Schwartz at aschwartz@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.