DMVs prep for the influx of AB 60 driver's license applicants coming in 2015

An estimated 1.5 million more people than usual are expected to apply for a California driver’s license in 2015. All of them will be undocumented immigrants.

AB 60, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October 2013, allows undocumented immigrants to obtain a California driver’s license starting on Jan. 2, 2015. In anticipation of the number of people who will be lining up, license applications in hand, the California Department of Motor Vehicles hired 1,000 new employees in 2014 and opened four new branches that will be specifically dedicated to processing paper applications, the written portion of the driver’s test, and the accompanying identification documents.

Driver License Processing Centers opened in Lompoc, Stanton, and Granada Hills in mid-November, and one opened in San Jose at the beginning of December. But the DMV isn’t the only organization preparing for Jan. 2. Foursquare Church in Santa Maria and the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy are both holding classes to get future applicants ready to take their written tests.

DMVs prep for the influx of AB 60 driver's license applicants coming in 2015
TAKE A CLASS: Foursquare Church is offering classes for people eligible to apply for a driver’s license under AB 60, passed in 2013. Undocumented immigrants will be able to start applying for licenses on Jan. 2, 2015. The next class session starts on Jan. 9 and runs Mondays and Fridays through Jan. 23 at 7 p.m. For more information or to sign up, call 310-4452. Foursquare is located at 709 N. Curryer St., Santa Maria.

Joel Arreola, Foursquare’s Spanish-speaking pastor, said the church closed out its third round of classes on Dec. 12. He said the first session of classes Foursquare held had about 150 people in it, the second had almost 300, and this last one had 450 people signed up.

“Everybody’s pretty excited,” he said, adding that at the very first class, there was apprehension in many of the people who attended, but fear morphed into excitement as the classes wore on. “We’re trying to build a relationship with the community and with law enforcement and the DMV. … I believe that’s why this class is growing, because we’re getting the information out there, and it’s spreading.”

In addition to going over information contained in California’s Driver Manual and practice exams, the church also brings in a spokesperson from the DMV and one from the Santa Maria Police Department to speak. Sgt. Chris Nartatez spoke to the class on Dec. 12.

Nartatez told the Sun that the police department is just trying to educate potential AB 60-licensed drivers about what the new law means in terms of traffic stops and accidents.

“They’re going to be treated like any other citizen—no different,” Nartatez said.

The licenses issued to undocumented immigrants will have the words “FEDERAL LIMITS APPLY” written in the top right corner to satisfy U.S. Department of Homeland Security requirements, but for routine traffic stops and accidents, those words won’t be used against drivers.

SMPD Chief Ralph Martin said the department is anticipating a reduction in the number of hit-and-runs that take place in the city every year. Santa Maria is ranked second out of 103 similarly sized California cities for hit-and-run accidents, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety.

“We’ll see how it comes about,” Martin said. “There shouldn’t be any reason for them to flee now, as long as they’ve got their license and are insured.”

He added that fleeing an accident does make someone a criminal, and if that person is undocumented, they could be prosecuted and potentially deported. But the goal of issuing the licenses isn’t to deport undocumented immigrants, it’s to get people what they need to be safe drivers.

The Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) is running classes up and down the coast, including in Guadalupe and Santa Maria. Both of those classes are full, at 40 students each, and the organization is already making plans for the next round of classes, which are full, too.

“There’s a lot of demand,” Davalos said.

She said getting prepped to teach the classes is a ton of work, and it does cost some money to print out all the information that needs to be disseminated. The classes are taught free of charge, and although CAUSE wants to get as many potential drivers ready as possible, the effort is going to take more than one or two classes.

“It’s going to have to be a collaborative effort,” Davalos said. “We want to help as many people as we can, but we also want to make sure they’re prepared.”

CAUSE is planning on putting on a forum in February to connect nonprofits and churches with the curriculum the organization has prepared for its classes. Davalos said the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales is planning on running a class in Mixteco to get non-Spanish, non-English speaking residents up to speed on what’s going on. Nothing is concrete yet, but CAUSE is in the process of finalizing forum, curriculum, and training plans, she said.

CAUSE’s classes do more than go through the driver’s manual, they also teach attendees how to fill out the applications, gather the documents they need to prove identity and residency, and make the initial DMV appointments.

Each of the estimated 1.5 million California residents who will be applying for an AB 60 driver’s license will need to make an initial appointment. Davalos said those appointments are already booked through January and most of February in Santa Maria and Lompoc.

 Artemio Armenta with the California DMV’s media relations department said as soon as the agency opened up appointments for 2015, 90 days in advance, there was a significant jump in the number of people who made appointments at DMVs and Driver License Processing Centers across the state.

Processing centers like the one in Lompoc will be open six days a week and are designed to alleviate pressure on standard DMV offices and can process the paperwork for any driver’s license application, not just the ones filed under AB 60.

“We ... don’t want to impact our existing customers to absorb new customers,”Armenta said. “Lompoc is going to be busy. In fact, it’s already been busy.”

To learn more about applying for a license under AB 60, visit the DMV’s website: app.dmv.ca.gov/ab60/.

 

Contact Managing Editor Camillia Lanham at [email protected].

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