No, but you’re the only person who thinks a $50 driver’s license you can be asked for on any given day and a $400 green card you’ll never be asked for without warning are equivalent.
Also, the purpose of driver’s licensure is not to intentionally create hardships to complying with the law in order to make it easier to jail or deport people; the purpose of $400 green cards is.
Immigration official is right up there with prison guard in terms of jobs for people who really get off on toying with the less powerful.
The last two posts are more opinion than fact. The fundamental difference between a driver license and an alien registration card is that the driver license does not prove that the person to whom it was issued has legal entry into the country. The ARC thus is subject to more rigorous anticounterfeiting measures and that contributes to the cost of the thing.
The fee for replacement of a lost card has nothing to do with equivalency as proof of identification. I currently carry the following cards which prove identity:
[ul][li]Retired Military Identificationi Card.[/li][li]US Passport[/li][li]Alien Registration Card[/li][li]Driver’s License[/ul][/li]
Unsurprisingly, the fee for replacing these items varies depending on the item. A friend here recenly lost her wallet and had to get her Korean National Identity Card replaced, for which there is no fee–it’s free. On the other hand, if I have to pay to replace my ARC, it will cost me 100,000 won. The passport will cost $100.
Of course, there are other factors going into the cost of the identification than anticounterfeiting features. No doubt, one thing is the number of people involved in processing the request for replacement, etc. The fees aren’t (are at least shouldn’t be) pulled out of thin air.
The comment about prison guards is no better than the biased comments condemning all police. In words: It’s just plain ignorant.
And, Lynn Bodoni, you’re not the only one who’s carried their card around all that time. I’ve always carried my driver license and military ID with me. Since I’ve moved overseas, I also always carry my ARC, as required by law, with me.
I didn’t say that they were that equivalent, only that carrying a document/ID is similar. I was saying that I have managed to keep track of the damned thing, despite carrying it around all the time, and that it’s not a particular burden to do so. We had a couple of people implying that carrying a green card around is risky, and that they are easy to lose. My experience is otherwise, and I’m famous for losing cards.
They’re no easier to lose than any other type of identification. The point is that they’re much more difficult and expensive to replace than other forms of identification - and that, again, you have a reasonable expectation of being asked to produce a driver’s license on any given day, which is not the case with a green card.
I’ve had a green card for 8 years. Apart from using it to enter the U.S., the only time I’ve needed to present it was why my employer asked everyone working for it to produce evidence that they had the right to work in the U.S.
(I got my Ohio driver’s license before I had a green card, when I had a temporary employment visa, so I presented my passport with that visa inside as evidence that I resided in the U.S. legally.)
I used to carry my green card in my wallet at all times, but I’ve stopped bothering with that, since no law enforcement officer ever seems interested in me.
For my wife, perhaps 2.5%. Don’t know about you.
No, she’s not. They’re not exactly the same, but similar.
As in, they’re forms of identification and fit comfortably into a wallet, perhaps.
Never said I was in another country!!!! Is in not possilble to send money within the U.S.? just like always you(meaning 80% of the zombies on this site) read with blinders on!!!! I'm all for the great melting pot. It's what made this country great in the first place. Only thing is that we seem to be skipping the blackening process which brings out most of the impurities!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Uh, what? What impurities are you referring to?
Muddied English?
Blackening doesn’t bring out any impurities. It adds a layer to finished metal items to prevent corrosion.
Blackening filters out all the sweet, sweet, exclamation marks, which leper keeps in his underpants until he lets them fly on the unsuspecting reader. Bazinga!!!
All we need now is a Super Bazinga.
And shit.
Uuuhhh, the illegal ones. Uhh the ones who refuse the great traditions of this country, but won"t refuse free medical care or a welfare check to save lives!!! UUhhh the ones that crowd our prisons with gang activity,with no regard for human life(hispanic or otherwise).UUhhh the ones who want or need assistance for the children THEY laid and maid, and keep having more!!!UUhhhh and YOU
In the old days, you would have been a Know Nothing!
Lou Dobbs, is that you?
In any case, illegal immigrants do not "crowd our prisons":
And those figures are for all noncitizens, not just the illegal ones. Noncitizens make up a smaller percentage of the prison population than the general population, so it seems we should be deporting some other demographic if you want to relieve the prison population.
Might want to look just at federal: the numbers are a bit different:
So: state prisons (4.6 percent). Combining state and federal prisons (6.4 percent). And the federal number is 27 percent.
Of course, Federal inmates make up something like 5% of the prison population, so that’s totally equivalent.