Maryland residents will again have to prove they are legal residents to get a driver?s license in 2010, and the license will cost them at least $15 more to comply with federal regulations, state transportation officials told a Senate committee Tuesday.
But some members of the Senate Budget and Tax Committee pressed the administrators to restart the practice even sooner. “Why are we so much more lenient than surrounding states?” asked Sen. Lowell Stoltzfus, R-Lower Shore. “We know we have a problem, and until 2010, we?re not going to do anything about it.”
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Maryland began requiring that applicants prove they were lawfully present in the United States, as 43 other states do. But a 2003 attorney general?s opinion said the Motor Vehicle Administration could not require that information.
MVA head John Kuo said the agency would begin asking people to prove their legal residence on Jan. 1, 2010, to comply with the federal Real ID regulations, which were finalized on Friday.
Sen. Edward Kasemeyer, D-Baltimore-Howard, the committee?s vice chairman, repeatedly pressed Kuo if there was a problem with people getting licenses who shouldn?t have them.
“We do have an increase in people attempting to give fraudulent documents,” Kuo conceded.
“The purpose of a driver?s license is a safety function,” said Transportation Secretary John Porcari. “We have become the de facto the national identity card checkers.”
