Activist wants drivers' names sent to feds

An activist against illegal immigration wants Senate President John Valentine to forward a list of holders of the new driving privilege card to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In a letter faxed this week to Valentine, R-Orem, Alex Segura asked the senator to "follow up on your agreement" to forward the information to federal authorities.

Valentine was unavailable for comment. However, Senate majority spokesman Ric Cantrell, who sat in on the Feb. 18 meeting, said he didn't recall such an agreement.

The request seems strange to Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, who sponsored the legislation that created the driving privilege cards, which are a replacement of illegal immigrant driver's licenses. Bramble said he wasn't aware of any Senate agreement with Segura or Molinaro.

On July 1, the cards will also become available to legal immigrants with visas but no work purpose, such as students, who previously didn't qualify for Utah licenses.

"It doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense for Utah to pass a law requiring state agencies to give the federal government information, unless the federal government is prepared to act on it," Bramble said. "If the federal government were prepared to act on it, they'd be requesting the information now."

Segura, of the Utah Minuteman Project and Utahns for Immigration Reform and Enforcement (UFIRE), and Joan Molinaro of the New York group 9/11 Families for a Secure America had met with Valentine to push for repeal of illegal immigrant driver's licenses.

Both Segura and Cantrell remembered the meeting was combative at times.

"It was gentlemanly, but there was an edge to it," Cantrell said. "It was not an atmosphere where people would easily agree."

Segura's letter said providing the information is required by federal law, but Assistant Attorney General Thom Roberts said the federal law cited by Segura doesn't mandate automatically feeding information to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said ICE officials regularly work with Utah's Department of Motor Vehicles, which is always "very cooperative" in providing case-specific information.

Kice declined to speculate on what action the federal agency would take if it were to receive such a database of information.

According to the Department of Public Safety, more than 3,200 driving privilege cards have been issued, and some 61,000 driver's license holders will be affected over the next year.

"Just having the list should have been automatic, so the Department of Homeland Security can randomly screen to see who has those cards," Segura said. "We should have a database of who the holders of these cards are."

Segura said it's been suggested to amend the driving privilege cards to automatically provide the information to DHS. However, he said both UFIRE and the Minutemen would rather see driving privileges for illegal immigrants repealed altogether.

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com