Susana Martinez battles in New Mexico to repeal law granting driver’s licenses to illegals
While Ms. Martinez deplored Mitt Romney’s suggestion of “self-deportation” as a solution to illegal immigration, she also directed police officers in New Mexico to inquire about the immigration status of those arrested, a move described by one immigrants’ advocate as “our mini S.B. 1070,” a reference to Arizona’s restrictive immigration law.
While she has promoted economic recovery as one of her major goals, Ms. Martinez has almost single-handedly fought for repealing the driver’s license law. And all along she has refused to entertain any deals…
Ms. Martinez said she keeps a list of the promises she made during her election campaign and puts check marks next to those she has fulfilled.
“I don’t waver from them,” she said during an interview in her office here, and then went on to recite her foremost accomplishments: raising the state’s dismal high school graduation rate by 7 points, to 70 percent; eliminating a locomotive fuel tax, which was decisive in luring the Union Pacific Railroad from El Paso to southeastern New Mexico, where it is building a $400 million hub; and promoting a program that has made it easier for trucks from Mexico to unload their cargo in New Mexico, resulting in record-setting traffic at two of the state’s border-crossing ports.
Blowback
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Nice
MoreLiberty on February 25, 2013 at 3:31 PM
Good on her.
AllahsNippleHair on February 25, 2013 at 3:33 PM
A driver’s license is the first step in quasi-citizenship.
NeoKong on February 25, 2013 at 3:35 PM
Good luck Susan, you will need it dealing with this issue?
Wonder how long till holder sticks his nose into this? Can’t have illegal alien d voters not being able to?
L
letget on February 25, 2013 at 3:40 PM
I have always liked Martinez. Like Reagan, one of the party’s strongest converts.
I hope she makes a run at the top job some day.
KingGold on February 25, 2013 at 3:42 PM
Illegal aliens have more rights/bennies than legal tax-paying citizens do.
Schadenfreude on February 25, 2013 at 3:43 PM
Obama makes up terrorism, as he needs it…plus, more lies about the sequester.
Schadenfreude on February 25, 2013 at 3:47 PM
Before you get carried away…she said that if the NM legislature passes gun control, she’ll sign it.
It’s a marvelous state, great people, stupid legislature, as a consequence of the blue enclaves and Looting/mooching, same ol’ blue idiosyncracies…
Schadenfreude on February 25, 2013 at 3:50 PM
This isn’t the first time she has tried.
Unfortunately there is (and has been for decades), a leftist hispanic ‘mafia’in the NM Legislature that is de facto much more powerful than the Governor, or even the rest of the legislature put together.
LegendHasIt on February 25, 2013 at 3:51 PM
She is one cool lady ! New Mexico roads are bad enough considering
cocktail hour starts a little before 11am .
Lucano on February 25, 2013 at 3:53 PM
Highly unlikely.
New Mexico may be getting bluer and bluer but it’s still a Southwestern state. And Southwestern state governments don’t pass gun control laws without catching holy hell from their constituents.
KingGold on February 25, 2013 at 3:56 PM
say it with me…
RACIST!!!!
Sachiko on February 25, 2013 at 3:58 PM
That actually had us worried for a while…
But according to a NM Constitutional Lawyer I was talking to a couple of days ago, it the really bad law that is being debated will pass committee, but the timing for this Legislative session is such that it very likely won’t even make it to the floor for a full vote.
And if it does by some chance make it, it won’t survive a challenge, because some of the provisions are absolutely unconstitutional, according to the NM Constitution, which is even more ’2nd Amendment friendly’ than even the U.S. Constitution.
LegendHasIt on February 25, 2013 at 4:07 PM
I see the NYT logic here: issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants is essential for economic recovery.
Why didn’t Obama think of this?
/
BuckeyeSam on February 25, 2013 at 4:09 PM
Clearly Martinez is a racist who hates Hispanics. /s
Stoic Patriot on February 25, 2013 at 4:09 PM
May it be so!!!
LegendHasIt on February 25, 2013 at 4:07 PM
I sure hope so!!!
Schadenfreude on February 25, 2013 at 4:16 PM
Like Gov. Scott, she did say “Yes” to the Obamacare federal cash handout though.
lucyvanpelt on February 25, 2013 at 4:52 PM
Ms. Martinez has almost single-handedly fought for repealing the driver’s license law, but if the effort doesn’t bear fruit she is toast.
Illinois Democrats, BEWARE!
DannoJyd on February 25, 2013 at 5:54 PM
It’s good that she’s right on this, yet bad that she is so wrong on:
The two don’t even square with one another. She doesn’t want them to get drivers licenses, but she’s ok with them staying and working illegally.
xblade on February 25, 2013 at 6:19 PM
Gov. (not Ms.!!) Martinez is confused.
Eliminating drivers licenses for illegal aliens is part and parcel of “attrition through enforcement”, or “self-deportation” as Romney called it. Unfortunately, Romney never explained it very well.
If you remove all the magnets, benefits, privileges, and rewards for illegal aliens, they will go home, as this illegal alien in Georgia explains.
Attrition is the most popular, efficient, effective, just, and fair method.
Thanks, Gov. Martinez, for working so hard to start implementing “self-deportation” in your state. Don’t stop with drivers licenses – mandate state-wide E-Verify, as Georgia did!!
fred5678 on February 25, 2013 at 6:58 PM