Paul Parsons testified on Tuesday, April 22, 2009, before the House State Affairs Committee in Austin. His testimony explained why placing responsibility on state and local officials to determine citizenship and immigration status is bad public policy. Mr. Parsons indicated that U.S. immigration laws are extremely complicated, and that it takes years for immigration officers with the Department of Homeland Security to learn these frequently changing laws and regulations.
His testimony indicated that:
Under our federal laws, a person can be "out of status" and yet "lawfully present." Another person could be "unlawfully present" one day and approved for U.S. "permanent resident status" the next day. Oklahoma and Arizona recently tried to pass restrictive state immigration-related laws. The outcome has been devastating to the economies of those two states; moreover, those states' laws have resulted in significant discrimination.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has attempted in vain during the past six months to determine who is lawfully present and who is a U.S. citizen among applicants for drivers licenses. They have erroneously turned away many U.S. citizens with valid U.S. passports. The DPS apparently believes that if a U.S. citizen was born abroad, he/she needs to have additional proof of U.S. citizenship. That interpretation is legally incorrect. Even U.S. immigration officials accept an unexpired U.S. passport as proof of citizenship.
