Author Topic: Dirty Treatment (Read 302 times)

poche · « **on:** February 11, 2020, 12:15:42 AM »

Driver's license applicants who want to exchange a Puerto Rican license for a Georgia license no longer have to take tests or meet other requirements not imposed on other U.S. citizens, according to a lawsuit settlement agreement.
The Georgia Department of Driver Services no longer requires applicants to complete a driving or written test to transfer a valid license if they are at least 18 and meet Georgia residency and proof of identity requirements, according to the terms of the settlement agreement. The agency has also stopped using a “Puerto Rico Interview Guide” to ask applicants questions meant to prove that they are indeed Puerto Rican.
The settlement was reached in a lawsuit filed in July by Kenneth Caban Gonzalez, who was born in Puerto Rico and applied for a license after moving to southeast Georgia in 2017. It alleged Georgia treated Puerto Ricans differently from other U.S. citizen applicants — forcing them to take tests, seizing their docuмents for fraud reviews and quizzing them on details about the island.
Accompanied by his lawyers, his fiancee Beatriz Rodriguez, her 6-year-old daughter and their 1-year-old son, Caban Gonzalez got a driver's license Monday morning. After everything he's gone through, he said, it was very emotional and he hopes it will help him find and keep a job.
“I want to provide for my family. I want to do what I came to Georgia to do,” he said in Spanish during an interview at his lawyers' office. “I came to Georgia for a better future for me and for my family.”
The lawsuit was filed by attorneys with the Southern Center for Human Rights and LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
“We appreciate DDS’s efforts to end discriminatory policies that treated Puerto Rican applicants like second-class citizens. We trust that these reforms will bring relief and hope to Georgia’s growing Puerto Rican community,” Southern Center attorney Atteeyah Hollie said in a statement.
Caban Gonzalez applied for a driver's license in October 2017 after moving to Hinesville, in southeast Georgia. Department staff kept his Puerto Rico driver's license, his original birth certificate and his Social Security card and told him that he would be notified when to pick them up.
An investigator sent the docuмents to his supervisor, saying they did not appear to be legitimate. When Caban Gonzalez went to retrieve his docuмents in November 2017, he was accused of providing false docuмents and was arrested.
Agency staff learned two weeks later that the verification process it used for Puerto Rican docuмents was no longer valid and federal authorities confirmed in the summer of 2018 that Caban Gonzalez's docuмents were legitimate, according to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation report. But the charges against him weren't dropped until last March.
The GBI internal affairs investigation, which found "deficiencies in investigative procedures” and a failure to follow department protocol, was prompted by Caban Gonzalez's lawsuit. The Department of Driver Services fired one manager and demoted another as a result of its findings, according to an agency statement in December.
That statement also detailed changes made as a result of the investigation, many of which are mirrored in the terms of the settlement agreement, which was signed Jan. 31. Those include more transparency and notification surrounding investigations into suspected fraud and a prohibition on the use of the “Puerto Rico Interview Guide.” The agency also agreed to prominently post its nondiscrimination policy and to provide staff training.
While the agency has already made changes, it has also agreed to propose language to change state regulations to reflect the changes in reciprocity for U.S. territorial driver's licenses.
The license transfer changes outlined in the agreement also apply to applicants from other U.S. territories, including Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The state also agreed to pay $40,000 to Caban Gonzalez and $60,000 to his attorneys.
Caban Gonzalez's attorneys said Monday that they were pleasantly surprised by how quickly the Department of Driver Services took action to address the problems raised by the lawsuit. They said they will continue to monitor the situation but are optimistic about the agency's commitment to the changes.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/georgia-settles-lawsuit-over-puerto-141959646.html

Bonaventure · « **Reply #1 on:** February 11, 2020, 08:04:15 AM »

Even though she had a valid driver's license, when my wife came to the United States, she had to take both a written (in ENGLISH) and behind-the-wheel driver's tests to get a driver's license. Little did I know not only how racist my home state was, but that we should have sued the state to get $$$.

songbird · « **Reply #2 on:** February 11, 2020, 12:48:15 PM »

I had a drivers license and had to get another driver's license. I had to read the book very well and take the test. I had to pass, because my husband was off to Spain and I was with the kids in Germany. If you don't read the book and test, you will fail. The test is set up for stupid americans, ha!, because Germans thinking and ways on road are different. Thank God I passed the test!

SimpleMan · « **Reply #3 on:** February 11, 2020, 01:09:00 PM »

Puerto Rico is under US sovereignty and Puerto Ricans are, by law, US citizens. The same is true of all the other territories you mentioned, except that American Samoans are US nationals, not US citizens. Residents of any of these territories are free to come to any state of the US and live as long as they wish to. There is no reason why their driver's licenses should be treated any differently for reciprocity purposes. In the case of Puerto Rico, driving skills are not language-specific (road signs would be an exception).

An American driver's license is ridiculously easy to get, compared to many other countries, and compared to what it should be. As it stands now, any dimwit who can pass a very simple written and road test can get a driver's license for life, and usually it can be reciprocated by any other state. In any locality of any size, you see accidents right and left throughout the day, many if not most caused by inattentive or just plain unintelligent drivers.

Bonaventure · « **Reply #4 on:** February 11, 2020, 08:16:48 PM »

Quote from: SimpleMan on February 11, 2020, 01:09:00 PM

An American driver's license is ridiculously easy to get...

Apparently not for this guy.

poche · « **Reply #5 on:** February 13, 2020, 12:21:22 AM »

Quote from: songbird on February 11, 2020, 12:48:15 PM

I had a drivers license and had to get another driver's license. I had to read the book very well and take the test. I had to pass, because my husband was off to Spain and I was with the kids in Germany. If you don't read the book and test, you will fail. The test is set up for stupid americans, ha!, because Germans thinking and ways on road are different. Thank God I passed the test!

This person came from a territory of the United States. When he went to get his driver's license changed to a Georgia driver's license he was arrested and charged with a felony. This was different and dirty compared to how other people are normally treated.
He was also screwed over by his lawyers. They got 60000 and he only got 40000.

poche · « **Reply #6 on:** February 21, 2020, 03:34:10 AM »

A federal judge has found the U.S. government in contempt after authorities deported five young immigrants who were seeking to remain in the country under a program for abused and neglected immigrant children.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins issued the civil order Friday after finding the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services violated a 2018 preliminary injunction that required them to notify lawyers of any enforcement action against the young immigrants in a class-action lawsuit in California.
Despite the preliminary injunction, five immigrants who were seeking to stay in the United States under a federal government program for abused immigrant children were deported, and one of them was reportedly assaulted.
Mary Tanagho Ross, appellate staff attorney at Public Counsel's Immigrants' Rights Project, said she learned of the deportations months after one of the immigrants was back in Guatemala, where he was attacked by gang members.
“It is shocking the defendants didn’t do their part to make sure ICE complied with a federal court order and they literally sent kids back to the lion’s den,” she said Wednesday.
A Department of Justice spokesman declined to comment on the case.
The lawsuit was settled last year between the U.S. government and lawyers for immigrants who sought to be covered by the program after they turned 18. Applications are allowed until age 21.
Tanagho Ross said she would never have learned of the deportations but for another lawyer who mentioned one of his clients had applied for the program, which leads to a green card, but got deported after losing a case for asylum.
The court ordered the agencies to return the five immigrants to the United States by Feb. 29 so long as they want to come back, and pay $500 for each day after that each one remains out of the country.
One of them has already been returned and is in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which plans to send him back to Guatemala in another two weeks now that the lawyers have been notified, the U.S. government said in a court filing.
His application to the program for abused children has been approved but he will likely have to wait more than two years for a green card due to a cap on the number allowed to be issued each year, the government said.
Tanagho Ross said attorneys will seek to block his deportation.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-finds-us-contempt-immigrants-205558664.html

Author Topic: Dirty Treatment (Read 302 times)

poche

Dirty Treatment

Bonaventure

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songbird

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SimpleMan

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Bonaventure

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poche

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poche

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