Public relations major Jennifer Birdbear is glad about the ratification of Assembly Bill 60, the new law permitting people who illegally immigrated to California to drive.
“I’m really happy about it! They’re being allowed to drive now without being hassled and bothered. Everybody should have the right to drive as long as (he) passes the driving test and the written test just like everyone else.”
Birdbear believes that it is unfair to forbid immigrants that illegally entered the country from driving because the United States was made by immigration.
“Everyone is an immigrant. Everyone in the United States is from all walks of the earth. I think that the fact that they (immigrants) were discriminated against to begin with and (were) being restricted (from) the right to drive; it’s just (b.s.) to me.”
One of the goals of AB 60 was to enable Californian residents who immigrated illegally to get car insurance.
Business major Dennis Collado backs AB 60 because of its effects on insurance premiums.
“I think it will be a positive thing. We will have less insurance problems and stuff like that.”
When the number of insured drivers on the road increases, car insurance premiums theoretically decrease because there are more people paying for insurance policies. This is one AB 60’s purported positive effects.
Communications major Jaritza Ramirez at first opposed AB 60, “Honestly, at first, I thought it was lame. Why let immigrants drive if they don’t have a d*mn citizenship?”
“But, when you think about it, it’s really good that they (California’s state government) are letting them drive because a bunch of them drive just to go to work and try to make a living. That’s all they have.”
Ramirez also backs AB 60’s provision that makes it illegal for law enforcement agencies to impound and take away vehicles owned or driven by people staying in California illegally.
“Sometimes (law enforcement) take(s) their cars away and they have nothing else. You really can’t put them down.”
However, not all Cerritos College students support AB 60.
Nursing major and a first generation American, Miriam Chahine’s parents immigrated legally from Lebanon. They proved who they were in order to immigrate and were able to enter the country.
As the child of immigrants, she finds AB 60’s provision for immigrants that entered the country illegally to be unjust like her parents.
“It is unfair. To me, if you are going to give it (the privillege to drive) to one person (an immigrant that came to America unlawfully), you have to it to another (immigrant that underwent the legal process).”
