Thousands of undocumented immigrants are expected to gather at a new Department of Motor Vehicles office in the South Bay over the next few weeks to legally obtain a California driver’s license.
The first day of 2015 marks the first time many undocumented immigrants will be able to apply for driver's licenses in California. To handle the rush, the DMV opened another office in San Jose this week and hired hundreds of new workers.
More than 500,000 undocumented immigrants are expected to visit the new office on Senter Road. Around the state, three more new offices are also opening in Fresno and Southern California.
Assembly Bill 60 cleared the way for this to happen. Assemblyman Luis Alejo wrote the bill that will give undocumented immigrants the opportunity to get a driver’s license in California.
Speaking to NBC Bay Area in Spanish, Alejo said undocumented immigrants are already driving, to go to work and to take their children to school. Now they can do it without fear of being stopped, he said.
Alejo said other drivers now won’t have to worry whether the driver next to them has a license.
The Mexican consulate has been offering classes to undocumented immigrants, helping them prepare for the written test.
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“We have been doing, every 15 days, four hours teaching people how to take the exam,” said the Mexican consulate’s Nuria Marine. “We want people to pass the exam the first time, not second.”
The new offices are known as a temporary driver’s license processing centers. The goal is to be prepared for the half-a-million undocumented immigrants in the South Bay who will be applying for a driver’s license on Jan. 2, 2015.
The new facility in San Jose has more than 80 windows to help applicants. For now, the new office is open, but only to legal residents or citizens applying for a driver’s license.
