Angolan illegal aliens struck and killed two pedestrians in Maine last week. In both instances, they were legally sanctioned to drive.
In the first case, Lionel Francisco, 31, was driving with a Maine-issued learner’s permit and had an illegal immigrant passenger who held a Maine license when he struck and killed a Massachusetts woman in Lewiston.
The other instance involved Mukendi Mbiya, 49, who killed a pedestrian crossing the street in New Gloucester. The Cumberland County Sheriff confirmed for The Maine Wire that Mbiya was driving with a Maine-issued license.
Given those incidents, it’s worth considering how illegal immigrants could obtain a Maine license and a Maine learner’s permit.
Unlike other Democrat-controlled states like Massachusetts, California, and New York, Maine does not officially grant drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants. State Sen. Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Cumberland) has put forward legislation on multiple occasions that would allow illegal immigrants to receive licenses in the state, but her efforts have not yet proven successful.
Although illegal immigrants can’t officially obtain a Maine license, non-citizens legally present in the U.S. can obtain a license if they meet a few additional requirements when applying.
Non-citizen license applicants must provide all the same information as citizens but must also provide proof of legal presence in the U.S. instead of citizenship and may substitute valid immigration documents for a Social Security number.
In order to establish residency, an immigrant may provide a wide range of possible immigration forms, including even an order granting a stay of deportation, as proof. Even if an immigrant somehow had none of the numerous acceptable immigration forms, the Secretary of State has discretionary authority to accept any other evidence that shows legal presence in the country.
“Any other document issued by immigration authorities or other evidence that indicates legal presence in the United States, as approved by Maine’s Secretary of State or the Secretary of State’s designee,” says the Official Bureau of Motor Vehicles website
While the BMV does not give any specific requirements for how long a non-citizen must have been in Maine before they can establish residency, Maine law defines a residence as “that place where the person has established a fixed and principal home to which the person, whenever temporarily absent, intends to return.”
That definition, if applied to license applicants, would seemingly prevent someone in the U.S. on a tourist visa from proving residency, but based on Mbiya’s ability to obtain a license, the BMV is seemingly willing to grant licenses to tourists here legally on a limited basis.
Both Mbiya and Francisco entered the U.S. legally on six-month B-2 tourist visas, which they then overstayed.
The BMV’s willingness to issue licenses to tourists or other immigrants in the U.S. on a temporary basis may not directly enable illegal immigrants to obtain licenses in the same way that Massachusetts does, but it does apparently allow legal immigrants to receive them and continue to drive after their visa expiration.
