NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Oregon may grant driving privileges to undocumented immigrants
By SARAH
ZIMMERMAN
Associated Press
“THIS IS A SLAP IN THE FACE FOR
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION. YOU
WOULD THINK THAT
AFTER OREGON
OVERWHELMINGLY VOTED
AGAINST THIS, THE
LEGISLATURE WOULD AT LEAST
BRING IT BACK TO THE VOTERS TO
DECIDE.”
SALEM — Every time
Mariana Alvarez leaves her
home, she crosses herself in
prayer in hopes she will be
able to return to her three
children.
Alvarez moved to Salem
from Mexico, and lives in
Oregon without proof of
legal residence. Under state
law, that means she isn’t eli-
gible for a driver’s license.
A quick trip to the gro-
cery store or to the doc-
tor’s office could end in
her deportation, and she
told a crowd of hundreds
of immigrant rights activ-
ists on Tuesday that she
constantly lives “in fear of
being separated.”
But a federal overhaul of
state driver’s licenses could
give Oregon the chance to
grant driving privileges
to Alvarez and the state’s
estimated 100,000 undoc-
umented immigrants. Leg-
islators are considering a
measure expanding driver’s
license access to all Oregon
regardless of immigration
status, as long as they pass
their driver’s test and meet
other DMV requirements.
“Driver’s licenses are
such a core, basic need for
families,” said Andrea Wil-
liams, executive director of
the immigration rights group
Causa. “While we may dis-
Jim Ludwick, communications director for Oregonians for
Immigration Reform.
AP Photo/Sarah Zimmerman
Mariana Alvarez, a field worker from Salem, speaks at a rally in front of the Oregon state
Capitol in favor of expanding driver’s license access to undocumented immigrants Tuesday,
March 26, 2019, in Salem, Ore. Alvarez says that she lives in fear of being separated from her
family if she’s caught driving without a license.
all state IDs and requires
that these enhanced IDs be
presented to enter federal
buildings and board domes-
tic flights without a passport.
The Department of
Homeland Security allows
states to issue non-com-
pliant cards for those who
don’t have the documen-
tation to prove their law-
ful presence in the country,
including victims of domes-
tic violence and those expe-
riencing homelessness.
Oregon will create a
two-tier identification sys-
agree what to do federally
about immigration reform,
families should not be sepa-
rated over a traffic stop.”
Twelve states, plus the
District of Columbia, cur-
rently provide driver’s
licenses regardless of immi-
gration status.
Oregon’s
implementa-
tion of the 2005 federal Real
ID Act, said Williams, is
an opportune moment for
the state to also make such
a change. The Real ID Act,
passed after 9/11, sets mini-
mum security standards for
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
Showers around
this afternoon
Rather cloudy
Intervals of clouds
and sunshine
Periods of clouds
and sunshine
Mostly cloudy
56° 35°
55° 37°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
60° 37°
57° 44°
62° 43°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
61° 37°
61° 38°
64° 38°
60° 47°
65° 45°
OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
60/42
49/33
60/34
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
58/40
Lewiston
63/41
61/37
Astoria
60/40
Pullman
Yakima 56/36
64/33
55/38
Portland
Hermiston
63/44
The Dalles 61/37
Salem
Corvallis
59/40
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
52/31
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
59/41
52/31
52/31
Ontario
62/35
Caldwell
Burns
49°
38°
61°
37°
78° (2015) 15° (1944)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
60/39
0.03"
0.20"
0.78"
3.59"
2.38"
3.02"
Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
60/39
SALEM (AP) — The sec-
retary of state’s office says
the Oregon Health Author-
ity still needs to strengthen
its efforts to detect and
avoid improper Medicaid
payments.
The
office’s
audit
division on Wednesday
released a follow-up report
to a 2017 audit that found
widespread problems in
the Health Authority’s pay-
ment system for Medicaid.
The Statesman Jour-
nal reports that audi-
tors found that two of the
eight recommendations in
the audit have been put in
place and six recommen-
dations have been partially
implemented.
OHA
officials
agreed with all the
recommendations.
Fri.
WSW 3-6
NW 4-8
“This is a slap in the face
for citizen participation,”
said Jim Ludwick, commu-
nications director for Ore-
gonians for Immigration
Reform. “You would think
that after Oregon over-
whelmingly voted against
this, the legislature would at
least bring it back to the vot-
ers to decide.”
Williams said that the
emergency clause is neces-
sary as the DMV will need
the time to implement the
change before the depart-
ment starts issuing Real IDs
in October 2020.
“It’s not our Oregon val-
ues to have families be sep-
arated for trying to live their
daily life,” she said. “Nobody
should have to live in fear of
deported from their family
for going to work or taking
their children to school.”
Report: OHA falls short on fixing
Medicaid payment problems
WINDS (in mph)
57/35
51/29
0.16"
1.20"
1.24"
6.05"
3.71"
3.75"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 48/30
61/41
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
HERMISTON
Enterprise
56/35
60/40
46°
38°
57°
37°
76° (1952) 23° (1975)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
63/35
Aberdeen
50/36
53/36
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
63/44
tem and issue both Real
IDs and standard driver’s
licenses, which are feder-
ally non-compliant.
Immigration rights advo-
cates are pushing the legis-
lature to drop citizenship as
a requirement for standard
driver’s licenses, which
would allow undocumented
immigrants to legally drive.
At least 12 other states
are considering a similar
measure.
The issue has become
somewhat of a hot potato
for Oregon, which, for
years, was only one of eight
states in the nation to grant
licenses to unauthorized
immigrants.
Lawmakers
initially reversed the prac-
tice in 2008 to comply with
federal ID laws, then back-
tracked and voted to rein-
state licenses for undocu-
mented immigrants in 2013.
But that 2013 law never
took effect, because oppo-
nents, including the group
Oregonians for Immigra-
tion Reform, were able to
put the issue to the ballot.
Oregon voters repealed the
measure 66 to 34 percent.
This time an emergency
clause in the bill would
immediately implement the
law upon passage, making
it far more difficult for the
group to repeal it at the bal-
lot box through the state’s
robust referendum process.
SW 4-8
WNW 4-8
The original 44-page
audit, released in Novem-
ber 2017, found problems
such as poor management
of payment and eligibil-
ity issues and a lack of an
agency-wide process to
detect improper payments.
At the time, auditors
also found the agency had
about $88 million in avoid-
able expenses because of its
backlog in determining eli-
gibility for Medicaid recip-
ients. Medicaid provided
health insurance benefits to
about one million low-in-
come Oregonians in 2017.
In
January,
Health
Authority officials reported
they had recovered about
$42 million overpaid to
organizations that coordi-
nate Medicaid benefits.
Recommendations not
yet fully put in place vary.
The new report found
that the authority has devel-
oped systemic controls
for the Medicaid Manage-
ment Information System,
but still lacks an adequate
understanding of how they
work.
The agency is taking
steps to hire a contractor to
test the controls’ effective-
ness and report the results
quarterly, the report said.
On another front, the
agency hasn’t yet clari-
fied Oregon administra-
tive rules to hold Medicaid
providers accountable for
improper payments.
OHA has identified
areas for improvements,
but still needs to finish the
rule-making process, the
report said.
CORRECTIONS: The East Oregonian works hard to be accurate and sincerely
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SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
47/31
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Sunrise today
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6:44 a.m.
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11:58 a.m.
First
Full
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