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Pa. State Representative Acosta On Giving Illegal Immigrants Licenses: 'It's A Safety Issue'

By Dom Giordano

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Pennsylvania state representative Leslie Acosta (D-N. Phila.) spoke with Talk Radio 1210 WPHT midday host Dom Giordano about a bill which is in the works that would give the over 200 thousand illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania the ability to possibly get a driver's license, saying that the bill would not attract more people to come to the state illegally, but would just help deal the ones already here.

 

"We're not trying to enable this kind of conduct and behavior for allowing people just to come in without being properly processed here in the United States, but we do have a situation where we have these folks currently in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, least 200 thousand, and we can't ignore this problem. It's a safety issue by having these people here, driving and not having the proper documentation and so we have to deal with this issue. It's not enabling more immigrants to come and we have to deal with what we have. We have been ignoring that situation."

Acosta feels that the bill is necessary because it helps the state and the country track these illegal immigrants.

"Right now we have folks that don't have driver's licenses and they're here illegally so we can't identify who they are. If we have folks that have driver's licenses as a form of identification you have their birth date, you have their information, you have their finger prints, you have a way of tracking these people down. So right now we don't have that in place, if we don't give these licenses to these folks, and if they can't use it for identification purposes and just for driving, then it really defeats the purpose of tracking these people in the United States, and specifically in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

She believes that it not only makes logical sense, but also fiscal sense.

"If we give these driver licenses to these folks living in the state of Pennsylvania, it's going to contribute about $134 million in taxes in Pennsylvania. So, economically it makes sense if this proposed legislation comes to pass."

Acosta and the bill's prime sponsor State Rep. Mark Cohen(D.-Phila) plan on reintroducing the bill in "about six months" after some elements of it are "enhanced" to make it ready for legislation.

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