By Jim Davis
Illinois’s Democrat governor, J.B. Pritzker, is about to sign a new bill into law that will allow illegal immigrants to become driving instructors. From Peoria’s NBC affiliate:
A proposal that’s passed both chambers would allow some immigrants to become driving instructors in Illinois. In the state, non U.S. citizens can apply for a special drivers license called a Temporary Visitor Drivers License or TVDL.
You might ask, “Where did that TVDL come from?” We’ve had a Democrat-controlled state legislature since 2003, and they currently have supermajorities in both chambers. Except for a single-term RINO governor in 2015–18, we’ve also had 100% Democrat governors since 2003.
The Democrats’ attitudes about illegal immigration have “evolved” considerably since Clinton, Obama, and Schumer talked tough about it 20–30 years ago. If Trump were to read any one of those speeches out loud on the air tonight, he’d be called a racist.
In June 2023, Pritzker even started allowing illegal immigrants to get standard drivers’ licenses, phasing out TVDLs, which had become a “Scarlet Letter” for illegals:
Pritzker signs law giving driver’s licenses to noncitizen immigrants
‘This legislation is a significant step in eliminating the barriers to opportunity that many undocumented immigrants face,’ said Pritzker. ‘We’re ensuring every eligible individual can obtain a driver’s license, making our roads safer, decreasing stigma, and creating more equitable systems for all.’
Notice the careful use of terms like “noncitizen,” “undocumented immigrant,” or just “immigrant.” Nowhere do we see “illegal.” But that’s what these code terms mean. Notice also the deep concern about “stigma,” “incidents of discrimination,” and “creating more equitable systems.”
In 2019, Tom Homan described DUIs by illegal immigrants as a “public safety issue”:
‘Ten thousand people a year die from DUIs, twenty eight people a day die from DUIs,’ said Homan. ‘I’d rather put an illegal alien in jail for DUI than white-collar bank fraud. It isn’t about if it’s a felony or misdemeanor, it’s about, is it a public safety threat and is it threatening American citizens? DUIs, are you kidding me? That’s a public safety issue.’
I’ve collected the following anecdotal evidence — but as Dr. Paul Cameron and the Family Research Council learned in the 1980s, the dominant left-wing media and academia carefully discredit anecdotal evidence, if it doesn’t serve left-wing politics. As part of my volunteer work for our church, I regularly provide rides to low-income people for such things as medical appointments, job interviews, and court hearings. So I see the insides of public aid offices, driver services facilities, and courtrooms on a regular basis. (I live in a suburban-Chicago county that’s roughly 10% Latino, according to the Census Bureau—keep that in mind.)
After two months of monitoring, among DUI defendants on our traffic court docket, 19.7% had a Hispanic last name — nearly twice as many as the Latinos in the overall population. And it’s much the same in felony court.
The public aid office and the driver services office are practically wallpapered with notices in Spanish, and substantial portions of the respective staffs are bilingual.
White applicants for SNAP benefits (“food stamps”) are told they’ll get their SNAP debit cards in the mail in 10–14 business days — in other words, up to three weeks. But Latino applicants, who rarely know any English at all, frequently walk into the public aid office with three pieces of paper and walk out happily with an “emergency” SNAP card. So they get same-day service.
I also had extensive opportunities to observe English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching in action, at Chicago’s special school for children of illegal immigrants: Rodolfo Lozano Bilingual Academy, which is of course named for a socialist Latino political figure from Chicago’s past. As I previously wrote, Lozano has the lion’s share of speech therapists and speech pathologists employed by the Chicago Public Schools, because… equity. After all, they have to pronounce English correctly. And I concede that for any immigrant, that isn’t easy.
But they don’t teach “English as a second language” at Lozano. They teach just enough words of English to get by in a city like Chicago. The actual day-to-day lessons are given in Spanish, because “it’s just easier that way.”
So we need bilingual driving instructors. And to fill that quota, we need to hire illegals.
These are just the raw facts, as I’ve observed them. Here are a few more facts that arise, at least in part, from the left’s love affair with illegal immigrants.
Our national debt is now $37 trillion. That’s an average of $383,000 for every taxpayer. The state of Illinois has $159 billion in debt, which is largely unfunded pension liabilities for state workers (an overwhelming majority of whom, particularly at the top levels, are Democrats). This adds another $28,000 in debt per taxpayer.
Pritzker cheerfully doubled the state’s motor fuel tax without a corresponding increase in EV taxes, but deficit spending is a problem wherever Democrats are in charge. California’s debt is $520 billion; New York’s, despite a state constitutional amendment (ratified the last time the GOP was in charge) requiring a balanced budget, is $368 billion.
Next, let’s look at what happens when a leftist Western government goes too far to protect illegal immigrants. Our cousins across the pond in the United Kingdom went too far. The son of Rwandan “migrants” murdered three young British girls at a Taylor Swift dance party, and wounded several more. But as Pritzker said, we mustn’t stigmatize the poor dears.
Naturally though, there were a lot of negative reactions from British parents, and others involved with the care of British children. In the wake of the killings, professional babysitter Lucy Connolly posted an anti-immigrant tweet, which landed her in jail.
Connolly has been sentenced to 2-1/2 years in prison for her mean tweets, under British “hate speech” laws. Her sentence was upheld on appeal. As Matt Walsh observed at Daily Wire, this was a far harsher sentence than Muslim immigrants, and left-wing politicians, received for the following crimes:
Crime number one: Exposing yourself to a 13-year-old girl, and then stalking her through the streets when she spots you, forcing the girl to bang on the doors of random apartments so that she can hide. Crime number two: publicly threatening to murder an infidel who dares to insult Mohammed. Crime number three: Sexually assaulting a 12-year-old. And crime number four: domestic abuse, including physical abuse, over a three-year-period.
Think it can’t happen here? Think again. Our universities already have codes of conduct that can produce a suspension or expulsion for “hate speech” targeting any of the left’s favorite protected groups.
Jim Davis is an IT specialist and paralegal, with degrees in political science and statistical analysis: the underpinning of all science. His work has appeared in Newsmax and Daily Caller. You can find him as RealProfessor219 on Rumble.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 