Illinois says licensing illegal immigrants makes our roads safer. My daughter’s death exposed a system of assumptions, failed safeguards, and questions the state still needs to answer.
There is an argument used to justify giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants that I have never been able to reconcile with the basic purpose of government.
They are going to drive anyway.
Therefore, the argument goes, states should license them, test them and make it possible for them to obtain insurance. Proponents say our roads are safer when drivers are trained, tested, licensed and insured.
At first glance, it sounds pragmatic.
Look closer, and the governing principle is remarkable: Because we anticipate that someone will disregard one law, government should accommodate another activity flowing from that unlawful presence because we assume they will do that anyway, too.
When did “they're going to do it anyway” become sound public policy?
Driving isn't an abstraction about human behavior. It is a matter of life and death. A vehicle can become a deadly weapon in a split second.
When government grants someone the privilege of operating one on public roads, it assumes a profound responsibility to the rest of us. It should act like it. Government's obligation should be to do everything reasonably possible to ensure that the people it credentials are properly identified, qualified and capable of driving safely.
“They're going to drive anyway” turns that responsibility on its head.
I understand the distinction between civil and criminal law. Immigration violations, traffic offenses, misdemeanors and violent felonies are not equivalent. But why should anticipated noncompliance become justification for government accommodation?
If somebody repeatedly drives with a suspended license, should Illinois simply issue him another one because he will probably drive anyway and we would prefer that he carry insurance?
Of course not.
Yet with illegal immigration, we have turned anticipated disregard for the law into an argument for providing a state credential.
For me, this isn't theoretical.
My 20-year-old daughter, Katie, was killed in January 2025 when an intoxicated driver slammed into the vehicle she was riding in at nearly 80 mph. Another young woman was killed and three others were seriously injured.
The man responsible, Julio Cucul-Bol, had previously been deported. Federal authorities knew him by that name.
Yet according to the Urbana police report, he possessed an Illinois driver's license bearing another identity: Juan Jahaziel Saenz Suarez.
Think about that in the context of Illinois' argument that licensing illegal immigrants makes our roads safer.
What exactly made Katie safer?
Of course American citizens drive drunk, too. Immigration status does not cause intoxicated driving, and that is not my argument.
The distinction is that Illinois specifically justified extending driver's licenses to people unlawfully present as a public-safety measure. If public safety is the justification, Illinois should have to demonstrate that the safeguards surrounding that credential actually work.
In Katie's case, they appear to have failed at nearly every turn.
Federal authorities knew Cucul-Bol by one identity. He apparently obtained an Illinois driver's license under another.
In open court, Cucul-Bol testified through an interpreter that he could not speak, read or write English or Spanish, that his language was K'iche', and that he had never attended a day of formal school.
How did he complete Illinois' licensing requirements? In what language was he tested? What documents established his identity?
Then there is the vehicle itself.
How was it financed and registered in Illinois under the identity he was using? His automobile insurance became the subject of a fraud dispute, with the insurer alleging coverage had been obtained through fraudulent representations involving a third party.
A driver's license. A financed vehicle. Illinois registration. Automobile insurance.
At multiple points, systems designed to establish identity and responsibility appear to have failed to identify the man the federal government knew as Julio Cucul-Bol.
Then he drove intoxicated, crashed at nearly 80 mph, killed two young women and seriously injured three others.
Where exactly did the promised public-safety safeguards work?
And now consider New Jersey.
This month, Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed that a software error in the state's motor vehicle system resulted in roughly 6,600 people being registered to vote even though they had answered “no” when asked whether they were U.S. citizens. Preliminary analysis found fewer than 400 people newly registered because of the error subsequently voted.
That does not establish that 400 illegal immigrants voted. We should not claim what the evidence does not establish.
It establishes something else: Government assurances are not government controls.
If a system can register thousands of people who expressly told government they were not citizens, citizens are entitled to question other assurances about these interconnected systems.
The deeper problem is the philosophy that got us here.
“They're already here.”
“They're going to drive anyway.”
“They need insurance.”
“They need identification.”
At every stage, government accommodates the consequences of unlawful presence and then uses the previous accommodation to justify the next one.
A driver's license is not a human right. It is a privilege granted by the state. And because driving can mean life or death, government has an extraordinary obligation to protect the innocent people with whom every licensed driver shares the road.
Lawful presence should be one of the requirements.
Illinois should end driver's licenses for people unlawfully present in this country.
Because “they're going to do it anyway” isn't a governing principle.
It's an admission that government has given up governing.