Sen. Don Benton calls out fellow WA Republicans over immigrant driver’s license stance
Nov 16, 2016, 12:25 PM
The national narrative on illegal immigration is focused on President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to deport the more than two million people he estimates are in the country illegally and have committed serious crimes. However, in Washington state, Trump’s campaign chair, State Sen. Don Benton, is focused on something else: illegal immigrants with driver’s licenses.
“In whose world do you issue official government identification cards to people who are in the country illegally and have already broken the law?” Benton asked on KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show.
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Benton, a member of the Senate Transportation Commission, explained that he has long been a proponent of getting the state to stop giving undocumented immigrant’s driver’s licenses. In fact, he called it a “crusade,” mentioning a time a few years back when he “tied up the senate for a lengthy time” to force a recorded roll-call vote over who was voting in favor of giving government ID cards to undocumented immigrants– a term he takes umbrage with.
“First of all, undocumented immigrant is a misconception,” he said. “You’re either in the country legally or you’re not. It’s pretty simple. There are a lot of legal immigrants here that are not citizens.”
Benton introduced another bill to stop the issuance of driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants at a Senate Transportation Committee legislative hearing Monday. As The Seattle Times noted, Benton was rebuked by both sides of the aisle.
Benton blasted his party members Tuesday.
“I was thwarted by my own party because they didn’t want to touch the political football,” he said. “There is no political football about it, folks. We have illegal aliens coming here, getting government ID cards and then going to other states where they can’t get them and trading their Washington driver’s license in for a license from that state.”
Benton said he’s been fighting to move his bill forward for the past two years and singled out Curtis King, a Senator from Yakima, and Republican majority leader Mark Schoesler as getting in his way.
“Now, of course, there’s a new bill by Senator King that will create two kinds of licenses,” Benton said. “One for illegal aliens, which is completely ridiculous. We should not be in the business of issuing government ID cards to illegal aliens. We don’t need two drivers licenses in Washington state. One will suffice, just stop issuing them to people that are here illegally.”
The Seattle Times also spoke with Rich Stolz of the Seattle-based immigrant advocacy organization OneAmerica, who said Benton was “trying to scare people into taking away people’s driver’s licenses.” Benton called that “the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of.”
“There are many more people scared of people posing as immigrants that could be coming into this country to harm us and so government ID cards should be protected for citizens,” he said.
“I’m sorry that you consider breaking the law to be an act of discrimination. I don’t,” he added. “I call it being a law-abiding citizen.”
