Mister Speaker and colleagues, I want to begin by stating that this bill began life as a good faith effort to clarify and even to be a housekeeping bill that non citizens could obtain and how they would obtain and when they would obtain a driver's license. Those folks include people who come to work here, and they include folks and young people who come to study here and all of my comments today will be related to pe…
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question is on the amendment (0637h). The Chair recognizes Rep. Sykes and is recognized to speak.
Rep. George Sykes (D - Graf 14)Mister Speaker and colleagues, I want to begin by stating that this bill began life as a good faith effort to clarify and even to be a housekeeping bill that non citizens could obtain and how they would obtain and when they would obtain a driver's license. Those folks include people who come to work here, and they include folks and young people who come to study here and all of my comments today will be related to people who are here legally in all circumstances. Instead, an amendment has been introduced and for the moment I'm going to keep my remarks to the amendment itself. The amendment included language that completely contradicts current DMV rules and practices. So currently asylees who are here legally in the country will wait to have their hearing and in some cases those hearings determining their permanent status can be delayed. In fact, it can be delayed 10, 12 years and even more. In the meantime, the federal government has made it as part of the federal government to say if you do not have your hearing within one year of the time that you applied for asylum, then you will be given a work permit. Then the DMV under its current practice would say well you are here legally, you have a work permit, you should be able to drive and by the way, you can as long as you come down and you take the written exam, you take the practical exam, and you prove that you are capable driver. The amendment changes all of that. What's really unfortunate about this is the amendment also is unclear about whether people who have already obtained their driver's license in this manner will be able to renew that driver's license. I want to tell a very brief story about how, as an example, how this works practically. We have a young person living in the City of Lebanon who arrived here more than 10 years ago. His son began school in first grade, I believe. He's in high school now. His young daughter is in the elementary school still. He volunteers his time with a couple of the city's commissions where resident input is important, and he works full time and supports his family. He works for a nonprofit agency that provides services to the less needy. He pays more than 40%, maybe even 45% of his income for rent so it's not an easy road for him to hoe, but he's doing this and he's doing well and he's thriving. He has a drivers license. What happens when he renews next time? It is unclear from this amendment. The second part of the amendment that is problematic from my perspective is that it will require all non citizens to have their license marked, mark them as a non citizen. Now here's why this is, in my mind, an anti business measure. Right now, there are a lot of people who come to work in businesses who have skills who are non residents, and they are able to do so because they can get their driver's license and they can get around and do the work that needs to be done. We have institutions of higher learning who are providing education to students who come, and they also receive a driver's license under this mechanism. They are now going to have to go through additional steps and put citizenship on their driver's license. I would like to remind the House that we have voted consistently over the years not to accept the concept that there should be a citizenship marker on driver's licenses. We have done so consistently because of privacy concerns and so I would urge all of you to first off, Mister Speaker I'll request a division vote on this, and I would urge all of my colleagues to press the red button on the amendment.
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question before the House is on the adoption of amendment (0337h). The Chair recognizes Rep. Walsh to speak in support of the amendment.
Rep. Thomas Walsh (R - Merr 10)Thank you, Mister Speaker. I'll start out by saying that the previous speaker was correct on what this amendment does and that's the problem. That's why we have an amendment because the DMV is actually giving temporary work authorizations to people with pending asylum and refugee cases in spite of the fact that they told me for months that they were not. Now, the bill does, and I'll get the actual words, say that no longer will these work authorizations be recognized. Why would we do this? I don't know, maybe it's me. Maybe its got something to do with the millions and millions of people claiming refugee that are coming across our borders, which is going to be equivalent to tens of thousands in the State of New Hampshire. Maybe its got something to do with the fact that the current administration is ignoring treaties and agreements we've been in for at least fifty years called the Third Safe Country Agreement, which means that only abutting countries are we responsible for accepting refugees. You can't jump six. You can't get on a plane and fly across the ocean to Mexico and then come here and claim asylum. It's against our own laws. Maybe its because we are ignoring our Third Country Agreement. It's reported that over 71% of the refugee claims are not from even eligible countries. Of the 29% that are maybe from eligible countries such as Mexico they still need to prove either a religious or political persecution. To come here just to seek a better life is not legitimate reason to claim asylum. It's just not. There are other avenues for that to happen. I'll give you one more reason that might sway your opinion on why we should be doing this. On the Southern side of the Mexican border, there are tens and tens of thousands of identities, identifications, visas, passports and currency, from right now they are counting about 180 countries from around the planet. Why are these people leaving their stuff in Mexico before they come here? Because they don't want us to know who they are. Bottom line is, I'm not going to get into the rest of the amendment because this is the controversial part of it. But if you truly believe that driving on our ways is defined as a privilege, and the privilege should be reserved for our law-abiding citizens and visitors. or in this case the people that actually are completely vetted and adjudicated through the asylum courts, please support the committee amendment. Thank you, Mister Speaker.
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question before the House is adoption of amendment (0637h). This will be a division vote. Members will take your seats. A roll call has been requested. Is that sufficiently seconded? It is sufficiently seconded. This will be a roll call vote. The House will come to order. The question before the House is on the passage of amendment (0637h). This will be a roll call vote. Rep. Sykes is recognized for a parliamentary inquiry.
Rep. George Sykes (D - Graf 14)Thank you, Mister Speaker. If I know that my last name is Veilleux or Sandoval or perhaps Mangipudi, that our families, those families came here to gain a better life. If I know that the amendment adds two significant new requirements, including a citizenship market which we have voted consistently against. And if a prohibition for asylees, we are not talking about refugees at this point, we are talking about asylees only, asylees to get a driver's license while they are waiting for their permanent hearing, would I now press the red button so that another motion could, so that the amendment could be defeated?
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question before the House is the passage of amendment (0637h). This will be a roll call vote. The Chair recognizes Rep. Thomas Walsh for a parliamentary inquiry.
Rep. Thomas Walsh (R - Merr 10)Thank you, Mister Speaker. If I know that no agricultural or educational or hospitality or any other visa holder will be affected by anything in this amendment. If I further know that the majority of asylum claims are from ineligible countries and based on the volume of discarded IDs and currencies at the border, that all claims should be adjudicated before privileges are given. If I believe that work authorizations are the way around the asylum process, which is overwhelmed by the millions of claims, then would I now press the green button? Thank you, Mister Speaker.
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question before the House is on the passage of amendment (0637h). This will be a roll call vote. If you are in favor, you'll press the green button. If you are opposed, you'll press the red button. Voting stations are open for 30 seconds. Have all members present had the opportunity to vote? The House will attend to the state of the vote. With a vote of 180 to 167, adoption of amendment (0637h) passes. The question now before the House is Ought to Pass as Amended.
Rep. George Sykes (D - Graf 14)Mister Speaker, I would like to make a motion. Like to make a request. I would like to move that the previous remarks on the amendment be put in the Permanent Journal. You have to do the whole bill? Okay.
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairWe will make it a package. The question now before the House is on the Ought to Pass as Amended. The Chair recognizes again Rep. Sykes.
Rep. George Sykes (D - Graf 14)Thank you, Mister Speaker. Collogues, you heard my previous arguments so I'm not going to repeat them. I will bring up one final and additional point relative to the bill as a whole. Within the bill's original language. So again, I'm not going to repeat the previous debate on the amendment, but I do want to point out that the original bill in its original language did have also a requirement that changed some of the language of how the DMV would process requests for non residents to get their driver's licenses. And they changed the language from may to shall and I would point out that during testimony for that, we heard very determined, very forceful language and testimony from the DMV of the problems that would create for them in administering that. So, for that reason alone I would urge my colleagues to again I request a division vote and that they would push the red button.
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question before the House is on the passage as amended on HB 1118. The Chair recognizes Rep. Steven Smith to speak in support of the motion.
Rep. Steven Smith (R - Sull 3)Thank you, Mister Speaker. So here is what happened. Someone asked me a question and I looked up a statute. Unless you have an hour on your hands, never do that. So, I looked at the statute that provides for licenses for people who are here temporarily, but legally. There were some problems. It is comprised pretty much of three things. One, identifying the people it applies to. Two, specific things that DMV should do to make sure they actually know how to drive before we give them a license. And three, the terms. So, first these were like if you took these things and put them in a shredder and then pasted them back together out of order. They were all over the place. You'd have something to identify the person. The next one and oh by the way see if they have a document that shows that they know how to drive. By the way, this applies to people. A mess. I don't know how it happens, but we are going to fix it. So, what
I did was, I went through this and this stuff for identifying the people, that was easy. It goes in the first section. Now we kind of would like to know if they know how to drive, right? How does the director do that? Well, previous legislatures went to the trouble of identifying five different things that the director may look at. It doesn't say he actually has to do any of that so we took the time to identify these five things and then the director can look at it and go, nah too much trouble and move on. Not good enough. So now it does say that they have to do at least one of these things. Now the DMV director was concerned that some nefarious director would pick the hardest of these five things to, you know, kind of make it really hard for these folks to get licenses. He can do that now. Matter of fact, this is, that's the way it is labeled. He may do all five of them. Now he can only do one. That's better, not worse. So, we reorganized the statute. Some of these folks who are here legally might not have a social security number. There was no carve out for the statute that explicitly requires one. That's been fixed. They are here temporarily. The tech company that I work for would get engineers from overseas for like two years. Why would you want them to have a New Hampshire license? Well because our insurance company on the company vehicles was a lot happier if they had New Hampshire licenses. So, it makes good business sense to do this. The bill also now requires that if they show a two-year visa, their New Hampshire license will be good for two years. The director has to sync up the duration of the New Hampshire license with the duration of their stay. So, it cleans it up and it just makes good sense and I hope you can support it. Thank you, Mister Speaker.
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question before the House is on the motion of Ought to Pass as Amended on HB 1118. This will be a division vote. A roll call has been requested. Is that sufficiently seconded? It is sufficiently seconded. This will be a roll call vote. The question before the House is on the motion of Ought to Pass as Amended on HB 1118. This will be a roll call vote. The Chair recognizes Rep. Sykes for a parliamentary inquiry.
Rep. George Sykes (D - Graf 14)Thank you, Mister Speaker. If I know that this was a good faith effort to try and clean up the language and I agree with my colleague about the efforts he was making, but I also know that two very difficult, and for me, problematic amendments were added to that bill that go into all of the things that I talked about where a citizenship marker on the bill would be required for these folks now and where asylees would not be able to get a license to drive. And if I know if that happens, how are they going to support their family has to be the question, would I now vote red so that another motion can be introduced?
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question before the House is on the motion of Ought to Pass as Amended on HB 1118. This will be a roll call vote. The Chair recognizes Rep. Thomas Walsh for a parliamentary inquiry.
Rep. Thomas Walsh (R - Merr 10)Thank you, Mister Speaker. If I know that this really shouldn't be a controversial bill, it just makes some common-sense corrections to law. And if I will always remember that driving in New Hampshire is a privilege, would I now press the green button?
Rep. Shurtleff, in the chairThe question before the House is on the motion of Ought to Pass as Amended on HB 1118. This will be a roll call vote. If you are in favor of the bill, you'll press the green button. If you are opposed, you'll press the red button. Voting stations will be open for 30 seconds. Have all members present had the opportunity to vote? The House will be attentive to the state of the vote. On the motion of Ought to Pass as Amended, the vote being 179 to 166. The motion carries.