A 77-year-old Navy veteran is having greater than the standard annoying issues on the DMV; as an alternative of asking for 1,000,000 type of paper work or ready in lengthy strains, one man is being instructed he’s not really eligible for a driver’s license as a result of he’s not a U.S. citizen.
That’s information to David O’Connor, who served his nation within the Navy and has been driving for over 60 years as each a daily class C driver and as a business driver. He’s additionally voted in each election since he was 18. None of that appeared to matter to the Tennessee DMV.
O’Connor just lately went in to get his Actual I.D. The Actual I.D. is a nationwide requirement beginning subsequent 12 months that will probably be wanted for issues like home air journey. To get one, you could present paperwork like proof of residency and most significantly, your start certificates. O’Connor did this. The issue got here when he offered his Canadian start certificates, Nashville’s Information 5 experiences:
They instructed me I shouldn’t have had the license within the first place ‘trigger I couldn’t show that I used to be a citizen,” O’Connor defined. “I’ve been right here for 77 years,” O’Connor mentioned, including, “None of this (scenario) makes any sense to me.” And nobody, he mentioned, has ever questioned whether or not he’s actually an American.
O’Connor was born in Canada to folks who have been each U.S. residents. They got here again to the U.S. shortly after he was born. In accordance to part 301(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act “An individual born overseas in wedlock to 2 U.S. citizen dad and mom acquires U.S. citizenship at start if not less than one of many dad and mom had a residence in the USA or one in every of its outlying possessions previous to the particular person’s start.”
This implies O’Connor is a citizen. He’s voted, paid taxes and has a social safety quantity. None of this mattered to the Tennessee DMV. Not solely did they not let him get a Actual I.D., in addition they canceled his present drivers license:
Staff on the Driver Service Middle in Athens, Tennessee, the place O’Connor lives refused to provide him a Actual ID. After which issues went from dangerous to worse. They refused to resume his license, once more questioning his citizenship and his start certificates.
“They mentioned, ‘No, that’s no good. We shouldn’t have given you the license within the first place,’” O’Connor recalled.
He continued, “And so they simply canceled my license proper then and there.
They then instructed him if he needed his license again, he’d should file papers to turn out to be a citizen—a course of which takes years.
“I’ll most likely be useless earlier than that ever goes by way of,” he instructed Information 5.
With O’Connor not having the ability to drive, Information 5 took his scenario to the Commissioner of the Tennessee Division of Security and Homeland Safety, a person named Jeff Lengthy. Information 5 says Lengthy was “sympathetic” to O’Connor’s scenario and promised to assist by wanting into it. Besides that was an empty promise as Information 5 and O’Connor say they haven’t heard a phrase from Lengthy.
The DMV wasn’t sympathetic both. In a press release to Information 5, the division cited a Tennessee regulation handed in 2018 that took away the best of non-citizens to have a driver’s license as the rationale they took O’Connor’s, nonetheless ignoring the truth that he is a citizen. Now, O’Connor can do nothing however wait and hope the scenario will get resolved.
