On Monday, November 4th, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York signed a bill into law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license. This is a life-altering change for many people, and a tool in the ongoing struggle for immigrants' rights. By ICE's own account, fifty percent of its detainees were located through traffic violations. A driver's license law would lower the number of violations and lessen the number of people jailed by ICE. It's time for New Jersey to pass such a law.

Though Governor Murphy would surely sign a bill if it reached his desk, Assembly Speaker Coughlin and Senate President Sweeney are refusing to allow driver's license bills out of committee. We need to call our senators and assembly members to lean on Coughlin and Sweeney to get this done.

In the meantime, the right bill must be written. Like New York's new law, ours must guarantee privacy to ensure that DMV records cannot be used by federal agencies to track undocumented persons.

I encourage everyone who cares about immigration justice to speak out in favor of driver's licenses for all.