“ESCONDIDO, Calif. (AP) - Delfino Aldama was fixing a customer's brakes this month when his smartphone chimed with a text message that tipped him to a police checkpoint more than an hour before officers began stopping motorists. The self-employed auto mechanic frantically called friends with the location and drove an alternate route home. The Mexico native had reason to be alarmed: He does not have a driver's license because he is in the United States illegally, and it would cost about $1,400 to get his Nissan Frontier pickup back from the towing company. He has breathed a little easier since he began getting blast text messages two years ago from activists who scour streets to find checkpoints as they are being set up. The cat-and-mouse game ends Jan. 1 when a new law takes effect in California to prohibit police from impounding cars at sobriety checkpoints if a motorist's only offense is being an unlicensed driver. Thousands of cars are towed each year in the state under those circumstances, hitting pocketbooks of illegal immigrants especially hard. When Aldama's 1992 Honda Civic was towed from a checkpoint years ago, he quit his job frying chickens at a fast-food restaurant because he had no way to make the 40-mile round trip to work. He abandoned the car rather than pay about $1,200 in fees. ‘A car is a necessity, it's not a luxury,’ said the 35-year-old Aldama, who lives in Escondido with his wife, who is a legal resident, and their 5-year-old son, a U.S. citizen.
Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, a Los Angeles Democrat who tried unsuccessfully to restore driver licenses to illegal immigrants after California revoked the privilege in 1993, said he introduced the bill to ban towing after learning the notoriously corrupt city of Bell raked in big fees from unlicensed drivers at checkpoints…”
First off, it is illegal to drive without a driver’s license and anyone caught committing this offense should be relieved of his or her vehicles.
Next, to say that a vehicle is a necessity would depend on where one resides. While I gather that there are some locations in the USA where a vehicle is a necessity, I am not convinced that it would apply to ESCONDIDO, California. After all, there is such a thing as public transportation.
Picture this scenario:
Driver A, an American citizen and unlicensed driver is pulled over at a checkpoint.
Driver B, an illegal immigrant and unlicensed driver is pulled over at a checkpoint.
Accordingly, Driver A’s vehicle would be confiscated but no Driver B. Driver B would get a pass because he is an illegal immigrant.
Hence, this new legislation is not justified and is bound to return to haunt Californians.
This legislation is wrong on so many levels. If officials have abused a law, then it is up to the people to hold said legislators accountable not create a law that on its own merit violates is biased, discriminatory, disproportionate and illegal.
So why are illegals above the law? One word, POLITICS.
Progressives are so busy currying favor for votes that they have forsaken the safety and lives of pedestrians.
