Wisconsin’s efforts to comply with new federal guidelines, will require proof of your citizenship, when doing anything that reissues you a driver’s licence starting 04/01/2007. I hope you own a valid birth certificate you can access easily. Ma and Pa have it at their house won’t get you a licence. I don’t think the media or the DMV have made much of an effort to tell you to bring the birth certificate, or you’re going home without a driver’s licence. The future renewal notice may mention it, I don’t know. People changing addresses and that lost the licence will have no warning is a certainty. Any person from other states had better obtain possesion of your birth certficate to bring to any government facilities, because it’s going to be your Green Card for compliance to new laws. The link has the other proofs that are valid, even if only a few people can use them. They at a minimum should have some comericals on this change. The Wisconsin news won’t mention anything until the irrate peoiple start calling in on 04/01/2007. Any Wisconsin resident recieving a renewl notice for April or later please mention here, if they have the new citizenship requirement listed.
At least they established what is proof, unlike a different agency in which they wanted proof, but didn’t specify what was proof. I left there last year, after we decided that a birth certificate wasn’t much proof, since it doesn’t contain a picture or identifying information. Until they instructed employees what deemed proof of citizenship, it was a random decission by the employees.
That’s quite interesting. Here in Florida, they won’t accept a birth certificate. You have to have a Social Security Card. I found that out by accident when my daughter went to get her learner’s permit 5 years ago. I had her US Passport and her official birth certificate (the one with the state seal) but no, those weren’t good enough. Only the SS card would do. We spent the rest of the morning at the SS office applying for a replacement card and she had to wait an additional 3 weeks to attempt to get her learner’s permit.
DC requires proof of citizenship or documents showing that you aren’t here illegally as well and they have for some time. My wife’s driver’s license was granted only to the the expiration date of her green card.
From what I recall, I had to show my birth certificate although I think I might have been able to use a passport as well.
The thing that is irratating is the lack of effort external to the DMV site to make it known this new policy starts on April Fools day. I can imagine that any effort by the news on the first of April to be taken as a joke. :smack:
This sounds like a clerk that doesn’t know what they are doing. Do they mention this at the Florida DMV website? In my experience, the passport has always been the “ace in the hole” that trumps any demand for proof of identification at a government agency.
Funny that you bring this topic, but I just received a letter from my state’s DMV about renewing my license. (The state sends out notices at least 90 days before your license is set to expire.)
So last Saturday, I logged onto the State’s DMV web site, plugged in the letter’s confirmation code and my driver’s license. After confirming the personal details, including a promise my visual acuity was at least 20/40 (with no confirmation if corrective lenses were needed to make it at least 20/40), and answered a few other yes/no questions, I was asked for my credit card details, press submit and that was that.
No proof of who I am required, other than confirming my current driver’s license details.
I will receive my updated license within the next few weeks. It’s good for five years.
Hah, I renewed mine last year. No worries until 2012! (And they’ll probably have changed the procedures by then. Drop of blood? Cheek swab for DNA sample? Retinal scan? Who knows?)
I am impressed. Finally a use for a birth certificate! The state uses such pretty paper (at least they used to. Last time I got a birth certificate the lady at the counter just hit a couple of keys and the cert popped out of the printer. Kind of a letdown) that it is nice to hear that they are good for something.
Very few organizations will accept a birth certificate for anything. They are nowhere near as useful as a high school ID badge. When my teenage son needed a new SS card, we had to wait until he went back to school and got an ID. Nothing else would do.
As a highjack-guess what government ID must be issued to anyone including an illegal alien? Win the prize-a school ID! There is a federal law that requires any school to admit any migrant or immigrant student immediately. A citizen can be denied an out-of-district placement, an illegal immigrant can’t be denied. Kind of annoys the principals, but that is the law. And what ID seems to be the best proof to get all other IDs-right again. Makes me want to go back to high school just for ID.
Right. a passport trumps everything in my experience. Once you have that (and demand is way up creating horrible backlogs), you can get any piece of paper you need. Even expired passports sometimes work.
Well, not in Colorado. Not last year anyway. The director of the DMV decided that they didn’t necessarily prove identity because you can get a passport issued with an other-than-legal (nickname) name on it. Therefore it couldn’t prove identity. That’s changed since we changed governors and directors (at least I think it has).
In addition, there were two states (one was Texas, I believe) for which we wouldn’t accept their drivers licenses when applying for a Colorado one. Something to do, I think, with those states not requiring enough proof of citizenship.
That’s bizarre. My “Social Security card” is this utterly unimpressive little piece of paper with my full name and Social Security number on it (natch), but no photo, no digitized thumbprint, no real identifying marks; and my signature on it (which I must have made when I was about 9 years old) no longer bears any particular resemblance to my current illegible scrawl. I can’t imagine it would prove much of anything to anyone. Do more modern ones have all sorts of spiffy holograms and your entire genetic profile encoded in them or something?
Oh, and I recently renewed my driver’s license (in Georgia). They sent me a renewal notice in the mail, I went on-line and filled out a simple little on-line form (I think it had about three questions, one of which was “Do you want to be an organ donor?”, along with "Do you want to renew for 5 years for $15, or if you act now you can renew for 10 years for the low, low price of…$30) and gave them credit card info, and they mailed me my new license a week or two later. The only downside is that I guess I’m going to be stuck with this crappy-ass DL photo they’ve got stored on their computers forever; but what the hell, nobody likes their driver’s license photo anyway.
Everybody should be ready for when fingerprints and footprints are required on all birth certificates fairly soon. After that they can try to sneek in a genetic sample down the road.