CA Illegal Immigrant at DMV: ‘Nobody’s Passing’ Written Test

Many illegal immigrants at a Northern California DMV reportedly were failing the written exam when applying for driver’s licenses on Friday.

Under the AB 60 law that Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed in 2013 and took effect at the start of 2015, illegal immigrants were able to apply for driver’s licenses on Friday. And nearly 1.4 illegal immigrants are expected to apply for licenses in California in the next three years.

At a DMV in south Sacramento, Veronica Oropeza, a 28-year-old illegal immigrant who has reportedly been driving without a license for six years, reportedly failed her written exam twice.

“Nobody’s passing,” she told the Sacramento Bee in Spanish.

As the Bee noted, “those who passed the written exam were given a driver’s permit and required to return another day to take the road test.”

When Nevada allowed illegal immigrants to apply for licenses last year, 71% of illegal immigrants in the state reportedly failed the written exam in the first three days. Wanting to avoid what happened in Nevada, immigrant groups like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) had provided free test prep classes to illegal immigrants in the final months of 2014.

Oropeza had “already spent more than three hours at the DMV,” and “she couldn’t stay to take the exam a third time, she said, because she had to get to work.”