Over the weekend we discussed New York State’s move to offer driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, resulting in massive lines at the DMV on Monday. Never ones to be left behind in the race to wokeness, across the border in New Jersey, legislators are quickly working to put a similar deal in place. There are plenty of similarities between the process playing out in the Garden State and what happened in New York. And few of them present a good look. (CBS Philadelphia)

New Jersey lawmakers passed a controversial bill Monday that will allow undocumented immigrants to get a standard driver’s license. Supporters of the bill rallied and camped outside of the statehouse in Trenton overnight…

The bill will now go to Gov. Phil Murphy for his signature to become law.

As to whether or not the legislature is expressing the will of the voters in New Jersey, that’s hard to say. (Remember that in New York, a majority of voters were opposed as recently as this summer but the measure passed anyway.) Recent polling in New Jersey on the subject is incredibly sparse. Most of the press is pointing to a poll conducted this summer which found a slim majority (54%) in favor of it. But that poll was ordered by an advocacy group formed specifically to build support for the measure and conducted by a polling shop without much of a footprint.

There are some older polls from well-known firms to draw on, but they’re dated. Monmouth found 62% opposition to licenses for illegal aliens and only 33% support, but that survey is quite a few years old. Perhaps the tide has shifted, but that would be a remarkable turnaround in a relatively short period of time.

At this point, however, the polling doesn’t much matter. The state’s Democrat Governor has already pledged to sign any bill offering licenses to illegal aliens that reaches his desk, so it looks like a done deal. Assuming no successful court challenge is forthcoming, the next step is to wait and see what the fallout looks like.

Like New York, New Jersey has a motor voter law, registering people to vote when they obtain or renew their license. It’s technically only supposed to apply to “citizens” but as we’ve seen in other states, mistakes tend to happen and some of the non-citizens inevitably wind up on the voter rolls.

Also like New York, the Garden State will now have a confusing, two-tier license system. The standard license will be REAL-ID compliant, allowing travelers to use them at airports and border crossings. But these new licenses will not be compliant. They can, however, be used as a valid ID for liquor and tobacco purchases, along with the ability to drive.

This also makes life more difficult for ICE. When they are investigating possible illegal immigration and checking out suspects, anyone with a valid ID may be assumed to be a citizen and slip through the cracks unless the agents run a full check on them. None of these side-effects are bugs in the system, however. They are features. And the liberals pushing for these changes couldn’t be happier.

Buckle up, New Jersey. (Both literally and figuratively.) You may be in for a bumpier ride than you think.