No Legal Obstacles to Providing Migrant Worker Drivers’ Licenses, NESRI Tells Vt. Committee
In telephone testimony presented to the Vermont Study Committee on Migrant Worker Access to Driver's Licenses and Non-Identification Cards, NESRI and Fried Frank attorneys supported the expansion of the state's standard driver license to migrants and presented extensive legal research showing its legality.
NESRI Work with Dignity Director, Peter Sabonis, joined Fried Frank attorneys Jorge Castillo and Richard Jamgochian, in the presentation, which included a written submission and two extensive appendices providing detailed legal research on licensing requirements in all 50 states for non-citizens, and Consular Identification requirements. The Committee is considering issuing licenses to non-citizen migrant workers, as is currently done in New Mexico and Washington. NESRI joined the ACLU-VT in supporting the expansion and emphasizing that the system should not identify workers in a way that would stigmatize them or the dairy farms for which they work.