All sorts of compassionate idiots have supported providing driver's licenses and other official documents to border-jumping immigration criminals. The idea was that, since they are here anyway (in violation of the law), they should be helped to live their lives in a legal fashion.

What these fools overlooked is that such criminals have very little respect for the law, and would gladly engage in fraud to obtain the legal documents that make continuing their law-breaking easier.

Tennessee has ended its policy of issuing "certificates for driving" to illegal immigrants, citing federal investigations that uncovered applicants using fraudulent documents — and even bribing state workers — to obtain driving privileges, officials said Friday.

The state began giving immigrants the certificates in July 2004, with the hope of balancing homeland security and traffic concerns. The cards give holders the legal right to drive but, unlike driver's licenses, they are not to be used for identification purposes. For instance, they cannot be used to board an airplane.

The Tennessee model was criticized early on from diverse quarters. Anti-immigration forces worried that it gave legitimacy to illegal immigrants. Immigration rights groups feared that police and others would be confused, and therefore inconsistent, in dealing with the cardholders.

Officials in the capital of Nashville grew concerned in recent months as federal investigations uncovered instances of fraud by illegal immigrants. Bob Corney, a spokesman for Tennessee's Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, said the governor's office was informed that immigrants were coming from other states to get the IDs, using forged residency documents.

Last month, a former worker at a driver's license office was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for issuing more than 40 certificates to unqualified immigrants, taking a $400 bribe for each fraudulent card.

So as you can see, trying to make life easier for criminals results in more crime. The proper solution to the problem of border-jumping immigration criminals is tough enforcement, including arrest, imprisonment, and deportation with a lifetime bar on reentry.

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