According to the New York Times, Los Angeles County stopped impounding the vehicles of people caught driving without a license. Whether it was a negligent teen who did not have a license or an illegal immigrant who couldn’t obtain one, the people who were caught by the police could formerly see their car impounded as a result of their choice to drive. Whether you left your license at home or never had one to begin with, you could have your car locked up and would have to pay an exorbitant fee to break it out from where it was stored.

That was before the governor declared that the law should be banned, and determined that this shouldn’t be a requirement for all police. Instead, law enforcement can use their own discretion when deciding whether or not to impound a vehicle. This law allowed thousands of immigrants in California to continue driving even after they were apprehended by the police and it was discovered that they didn’t have a valid form of ID. Those who don’t have an ID are normally illegal, but the police would still allow these illegal immigrants to go free with their car after a confrontation. In most cases, the individual who was apprehended was simply issued a traffic infraction for whatever offense was committed.

After that step, Los Angeles moved on to an even larger immigrant-friendly step. The state declared that the police department would stop handing illegal immigrants over to the federal authorities for deportation if they were only caught committing a low-level crime. This new ruling will help thousands of immigrants to stay protected from deportation in the state of California. Now, California’s Los Angeles County could become the largest city in the country to offer municipal identification cars to all illegal immigrants. With these cards, immigrants would be permitted to open bank accounts and gain other services where an ID is required.

One Los Angeles city councilman says that the new statute would allow outcast immigrants to live in the light of day once again. Government officials in the state say that they believe immigration is a state issue as well as a federal one and want to take the steps that they can to provide for immigrants now. Currently, states are divided over the issue of immigration. While Los Angeles County has slowly begun to welcome immigrants into the states with incentives like ID cards, other states like Arizona have been vigilant in seeking out and abolishing illegal aliens. In Arizona, police are permitted to request a driver’s green card or other immigration identification when that driver is pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. If the motorist can’t produce this documentation, then he or she can be arrested for illegal immigration and eventually sent to federal court for deportation.

In 2007, New Haven became the first city in America that issued ID cards to illegal immigrants. A handful of other cities have also followed the example including Oakland and San Francisco. Hundreds of people in these cities lined up to receive one of the ID cards the first day they were issued. Now, the Los Angeles ID cards would function as a prepaid debit cards. County officials believe that almost 12 percent of all city residents do not keep their money in a bank. Most of the time, this is because they cannot open an account without a valid ID. The new ID cards would allow these men and women to open accounts and avoid having to carry large amounts of cash on their person. Having so much money in their purses or pockets causes illegal immigrants to become targets for robbery. Contact an immigration lawyer if you are seeking more information about immigration, illegal immigrant laws, or receiving an ID.