Letter to the Editor, Raleigh News & Observer
There’s no shortage of solutions in search of problems these days in Raleigh. One classic example is the proposed pink licenses for young immigrants who are granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The special licenses, approved by Gov. Pat McCrory, were neither requested by law enforcement nor designed to follow what other states have done.
In fact, one of the main results of the proposal will be to antagonize and exclude immigrant communities – communicating that they don’t really belong.
It’s a clever way to try to comply with the letter of the law while violating its spirit. But it’s wrong to use official state documents to stigmatize or discriminate against a certain group. Why not issue the pink licenses to people who need to wear glasses when driving or to those with other restrictions?
No one has explained why we can’t just issue regular licenses with the additional wording. The governor and DMV should drop it and move on to more important issues.
Chris Liu-Beers, Program Associate
