Illegal Aliens Sue to Drive, Claim Discrimination of “Disfavored Minority Group”

Borrowing a play from the Obama administration’s extensive race-card repertoire, illegal immigrants claim in a federal lawsuit that a ballot measure denying them driver’s licenses is discriminatory because it’s based on membership in a “disfavored minority group.”

About a year ago Oregonians overwhelmingly voted against Measure 88, which would have provided special driver cards to illegal aliens. Voters throughout the state, which is largely represented by Democrats in Congress, fiercely rejected the initiative 983,576 to 506,751, according to election results from the Oregon Secretary of State. All of Oregon’s 36 counties voted against Measure 88 by significant margins, the figures show. Measure 88 was put on the ballot after Oregon legislators passed a controversial law in 2013 directing the Department of Transportation to give illegal immigrants who have resided in the state for more than a year a special driver card.

Disregarding the clear intent of Oregon’s U.S. citizens, a group of five Mexicans, identified only by their initials in court documents, are suing the state for—get this—violating their civil rights by denying them driving privileges. Governor Kate Brown is also named as a defendant in the complaint and so is the director of Oregon’s Department of Transportation and the director of the agency’s driver and motor vehicle division. Two immigrant right groups called Familias En Acción and Los Niños Cuentan (Families in Action and Children Count) have joined the Mexican illegal aliens as plaintiffs in the case.

They accuse Oregon officials of violating the U.S. Constitution by “arbitrarily” denying them and other illegal immigrants driving privileges simply because they belong to a disliked minority group. Measure 88 was “motivated in substantial part by animus toward persons from Mexico and Central America,” the lawsuit alleges, further stating that the ballot initiative “was an improper attempt by the State of Oregon to regulate immigration.” The two Latino rights nonprofits claim that, if driver cards were available to the illegal aliens they serve, they’d be able to help more individuals and families. The complaint fails to offer how the groups’ rights are violated by not giving illegal immigrants licenses.

About 84,000 illegal immigrants have already been stripped of driving privileges, according to the lawsuit which asserts that they were singled out as an “unpopular minority for disparate treatment in violation” of the U.S. Constitution. Tens of thousands more who live on Oregon can’t prove legal status in the U.S., the complaint reveals, and they will suffer societal, economic and health-related disadvantages if they’re not allowed to drive. The ban will prevent illegal aliens from “exercising their liberty interest in operating a motor vehicle for a lawful purpose,” the complaint states.

This is hardly the first time we’ve seen illegal immigrants use the American court system in an effort to strong arm public agencies to give them rights. A few years ago Judicial Watch reported on a Nebraska case involving an illegal alien who sued the state for “unconstitutionally” denying her a driver’s license. Represented by the notoriously leftist Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the 24-year-old woman claimed that she had the right, under the U.S. Constitution, to drive because she was protected by one of President Obama’s amnesty programs. In other cases over the last few years, illegal immigrants have sued various government agencies—at the federal, state, county and city level—for violations of “constitutional rights” and discrimination. In 2013 illegal aliens even demanded that American taxpayers finance their organ transplants!