Permanent residents, like green-card holders, have the right to full-term driver’s licenses in North Carolina, according to a recent policy clarification issued by the Department of Transportation.
The North Carolina Justice Center and ACLU of North Carolina petitioned the state three months ago to clarify its driver’s license policy for noncitizens. Petitioners raised concerns that many immigrant residents were being unlawfully denied access by the Division of Motor Vehicles.
ACLU attorney Muneeba Talukder said permanent residents and immigrants with indefinite status were being issued shorter-term licenses or denied altogether due to confusion over federal immigration documents. A Department of Transportation ruling issued this week should mean an end to those restrictions.
“The driver's licenses will not be ending on the date that an individual's immigration document expires, which is really the big thing here. And it's important because that's what the DMV was mainly getting wrong,” Talukder said.
When renewing a license, immigrant drivers should no longer be affected by out-of-date documents, often resulting from federal backlogs.
“All lawfully present immigrants who have permanent or indefinite status are also eligible to renew their driver's licenses with an expired document if that's what they have, such as a green card,” Talukder said, “as long as their actual underlying immigration status is still valid.”
Non-citizen applicants will still need to have their immigration status checked through the federal SAVE verification process, which could result in delays.
Talukder said the state continues to implement SAVE verification requirements on noncitizens beyond what is federally required, and that the process should only apply to REAL ID applications.
Updated guidance for issuing driver’s licenses to immigrant applicants has already taken effect at the Division of Motor Vehicles, according to the Department of Transportation’s ruling.
