Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund Staff Attorney Luis Figueroa was at the state Capitol in Austin Thursday. (Photo: RGG/Steve Taylor)

AUSTIN, January 30 – A Latino advocacy group filed suit against the Texas Department of Public Safety Wednesday alleging the agency's overhauled policies concerning driver's licenses eligibility adversely affects legal residents living in the country.

“We believe that when the (Department of Public  Safety) issued new rules covering who could get a license, what the license could look like and the documents that you need to bring to get a driver's license that they exceeded their authority,” said Luis Figueroa, a legislative attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

At the forefront  of the complaint, Figueroa said, are the changes that mandate applicants present visas that are valid for more than one year at the time they apply for a driver's license application and the department's decision to issue non-citizens a vertical driver's license instead of the standard horizontal version. MALDEF also opposes the policy change that requires legal residents to furnish additional documentation, including immigration or naturalization papers, before they can apply for a license.

Tela Mange, a DPS spokeswoman in Austin, said Thursday the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Figueroa added that in 2007 a similar effort by Department of Public Safety was rejected by the Texas Legislature but the agency “decided to do this on their own.”

“These again were rules that were rejected by the legislature last session and some of these new rules weren't passed through their own process (but) they were issued through directives, again over going the process. There is a way to go and get these rules done and they've overstepped that authority.”

Figueroa said circumventing the legislative process, as he alleges the Department of Public Safety has, forgoes the crucial fact-finding requirement, which in this case was the genesis of the "unintended consequences."

“When rules are done through DPS without the hearing or without the fact-finding process the legislature does, it's exactly what you get:  unintended consequences affecting people who have lawful permission to be in the United States,” he said.

The vertical driver's license, he said, could also be damaging to loan applicants or people trying to rent a place to live.

“What we do emphasize in that change is the potential for profiling with the new driver's license picture,” he said. “If someone tries to go and get an apartment and they see that it's vertical and it says 'temporary visitor' we think there is a prospect that they will not be able to get an apartment lease and they will not be able to get a loan. They may to be able to get a utility set up because people thing they are not supposed to be here or they are not going to live here long enough to pay back that loan.”

MALDEF was approached by a landscaping company based in Lewisville, a suburb outside of Dallas, which Figueroa said was indicative of the types of businesses that could be negatively affected by the policy changes.

“They sometimes have to hire workers who need driver's licenses and many times they are not here for the period of time that DPS wants them here,” he said. “DPS wants people to be here for over a year but many people work here for less than six months or between six months and a year and they need a driver's license  (to work).”

Aside from the business, however, Figueroa said myriad people and organizations have expressed concern over the change and urged MALDEF to get involved.

“Since this rule has gone into effect we've gotten calls from constituents, from legislators, from other organizations and from businesses all saying that this rule is having an impact on people who were lawfully residing in the United States,” he said. “And it's being applied differently in different offices. The whole thing has been a complete mess.”

As of press time, Figueroa said DPS had not filed a response to MALDEF's petition, though he anticipated a response would be forthcoming soon.