Hello, my name’s Jerry Gerritsen, Tabia Law. Today we’re gonna be talking about driver’s license. Can an immigrant just get a driver’s license, uh, in any state and at any time? And, uh, so is that the right to do? We’ll talk about that quickly and you wanna make sure that you stay on this video all the way through.
Hi everybody, This is Jerry Garson Tabia Law. Uh, we’re gonna be talking about driver’s license today. Can an immigrant just, uh, get a driver’s license, uh, and whether they’re here legally or illegally or whatever the situation is, uh, our driver’s license, something that, uh, anybody can get any time. We’ll talk about that.
Before we do that, let’s, uh, go ahead and, uh, talk about. Having me as your guide and as your partner in the world of immigration, and let me, uh, help you, uh, understand immigration better. Uh, you can do that by liking me, first of all, if you’d like me and, uh, or subscribing or, and subscribing and that little red button up there, go ahead and click that and that will give you notifications of a new video that you get weekly, give or take, uh, from.
And, uh, so, all right, let’s go ahead and move on. Driver’s license. So we just had a Supreme Court ruling, uh, back in May called Patel versus, uh, Attorney General or Garland, the Attorney General. An important ruling that touches on this idea, uh, in the federal. Courts can a lower decision, like in an immigration court, can that be appealed to a higher court, to a federal court?
And the answer from Patel was basically no. Unless it is, um, uh, unless the issue at hand is a legal one or constitutional. If not, if it’s just on the facts, then there’s a tradition in our legal system that those are. Taken care of are, uh, uh, that it’s better for the lower courts, the, the first court of option there to cover that, to get at the facts than for a, uh, court that’s generally outta the area or bigger and, and, and, uh, that they’re not able to get at the facts just, uh, as, as, uh, closely and as much as the lower court can.
So, uh, generally, An appeal court, like a federal court or even the Supreme Court, will not take lower court cases decisions based on facts. It has to be a question, a law, or a question, uh, involving the constitution. Okay, So with that said, in Patel, there is a situation where, uh, legal alien was, um, getting, uh, found on an application to get his driver’s.
Now, is that legal? Uh, it depends. , and of course I’m a lawyer, so it depends, Right. Um, what state you’re in, cuz every state law is different. Uh, it depends on what state you’re at. So, um, and so the driver’s license are taken care of each state. So when you get your driver’s license, you’ll look at it and you’ll see the name of the state, your state on the driver’s license.
So that’s the, the governing body. It’s not a federal license. So it’s state now. They have, each day has different rules on your driver’s license. A lot of ’em. And so, and again, I’m not practicing state law. I’m a, I’m a United States immigration attorney practicing federal law. But as far as the states are concerned, you have to look at each state.
Uh, rules and laws and a lot of ’em have rules that an immigrant can get a license however they need to be here. The status needs to be current. They have to have a be here on a valid visa. Generally, if they’re in a process of getting their grain card or another visa. It takes the receipt, a copy of that receipt, uh, during your I 7 97 for them to move forward.
But again, every state’s different. I’m not telling you how to do this, uh, from a legal transcribe. I’m just talking about this subject. Okay? So that’s how that works. Before we move on, I wanna get to something very important at the end. Um, please let me be your partner and guide in the world of immigration.
You can, like me, you can subscribe right now, and that bell up there, go ahead and hit that. So you’ll be notified about. Videos. Okay, let’s do this. When, and if you fill out a driver’s license application, a lot of ’em have a, uh, a way for you to check a box and vote. Okay? Here it is. Here’s the biggie. Don’t do that.
Unless you’re a US citizen, you are not allowed to vote if, if you’re not a US citizen, only US citizens are allowed to. Don’t check that box and say, I’m a US citizen. I wanna vote. Send me a ballot in the next election. If you’re not a US citizen, if you’re a green card holder, if you’re uh, an immigrant, if you’re a non, uh, if, if you’re just here, right, you can’t vote because if you do, if you check that box, what happened in this case Patel, that was just telling me about in the Supreme Court is he was here illegally.
He decided to file for his green card, uh, with no status, and it wasn’t even, uh, the, the U S C I S, they look at his case and they say, Well, before we even get to substance of the matter, uh, we wanna, uh, we got the situation where he checked off on, uh, driver’s license application that he was. Us citizen.
And he’s not, He doesn’t mean have a visa status at all. Right? So that’s a big no no, that’s fraud. And you’ll get removed out the country and you’ll be barred to coming back. Right? I mean, it’s, it’s a problem. It’s a big problem. So his explanation, Patel, was, it was by accident. He didn’t know. He didn’t read, He just checking boxes.
He didn’t, Well, they didn’t. Okay. And the whole thing, the reason why this United States Supreme Court took this case is to answer this question of can higher courts like appellate courts in this situation it said 11 circuit court, can they review or take a case from a lower court? And, um, can it go to them?
Can they take it? Uh, is it appealable to them? And, uh, the Supreme Court with Justice Gorsuch and Bart, and she wrote and she wrote the, um, the rule and the Majority Opinion, which said No, they. No. And the reason is, is because generally in law you can, on the, the higher cars can only review or take an appeal, uh, based on law, legal question or the constitution, not on facts.
In this situation, it was pretty much on facts and because they’re saying, did he have the intent to check that box to say he was a US citizen? Patel said, Right. The government said yes. Yes, you did. All right. And, and, uh, so the Supreme Court said 11th circuit. You had no business reviewing this case and overturning it because it wasn’t rev viewable because it was on a factual basis, not law or not the constitution.
So that’s, that’s it there. So how’s this impact you? If you fill out a driver’s license application, make sure you don’t check the box that your US is, if you’re not a us. Please. That’s a big problem for you if you’re an immigrant or if you’re looking to immigrate to this country. Okay, Let me remind you again, go ahead and subscribe.
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