University of St. Thomas Law Journal

Minnesota Driver’s Licenses for All – What Do We Need to Know About this New Law?  

Maggie Chen*

Imagine yourself driving and hearing the police siren going off behind you. You look up and see the shining red and blue lights in your rearview mirror. As you nervously pull to the side of the road, what would be the first thought that goes through your mind? Are you worrying about getting an expensive ticket? Are you questioning whether you have renewed your license, tab, or car insurance? Are you brainstorming ways to talk yourself out of the situation? While these are all common reactions when someone is pulled over, these are likely not the top priorities for undocumented immigrants. For them, the first word that would instantly pop up in their brain is—deportation.

A new piece of Minnesota legislation just removed this burden of fear from undocumented immigrants. On March 7, 2023, Governor Tim Walz signed the “Driver’s Licenses for All” bill into law.1 It reversed a 2003 policy by then-Governor Tim Pawlenty listing proof of lawful admission into the U.S. as a requirement for obtaining a driver’s license in Minnesota following the 911 terrorist attacks and the associated increased security concerns.2

The Driver’s Licenses for All law went into effect on October 1, 2023.3 Under this new law, all Minnesotans, regardless of their immigration status, are now eligible for a standard Class D driver’s license.4 Applicants must still pass written and road tests and attest to their address in Minnesota.5 While applicants won’t be asked for proof of legal presence, they still need to provide identifying documents. Applicants may present either two primary documents or one primary document and one secondary documents.6 Examples of primary documents include an unexpired foreign passport or consular identification document.7 Examples of secondary documents include a school ID or social security card.8 For those who do not wish to enjoy driving privileges, they may use the same set of documents to apply for a standard Minnesota identification card as well.9

I. How does this new legislation benefit Minnesota as a whole?

Immigration has always been a controversial topic, especially in today’s political climate. Supporters of this new legislation say it will improve public safety by ensuring that all drivers are licensed and insured, while opponents believe it will encourage illegal immigration.10 So, does issuing driver’s licenses without regard to immigration status only benefit undocumented immigrants? Are there societal benefits as well?

To answer these questions, we can start by looking at data from other states. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, prior to Minnesota, eighteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.11 These states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.12 In Connecticut, issuing licenses to immigrants without immigration status led to a 9% decrease in hit-and-runs.13 Similarly, California experienced a 7–10% decrease in accidents.14

Undocumented drivers with a license will also be required to purchase auto insurance.15 After granting undocumented drivers access to licenses, both Utah and New Mexico experienced significant drops in their rates of uninsured drivers.16 The Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) also predicted that insurance rates will decrease due to fewer uninsured motorist costs.17 Additionally, drivers will be more likely to stay at crash scenes to help emergency responders or exchange insurance information if they have a valid driver’s license.18 Therefore, by allowing qualified undocumented drivers to obtain valid driver’s licenses, this new legislation will lead to safer roads and communities for all Minnesotans.

II. What are the privacy protections in place for undocumented immigrants?

Generally, most undocumented immigrants remain in this country by laying low and staying out of the radar of government agencies.19 Even with this new legislation, how can we make sure that they will actually apply for a driver’s license?

To encourage undocumented immigrants to apply, a series of privacy protections were put in place to limit DPS’s ability to share information outside of the agency.20 The Immigration Law Center of Minnesota summarized the privacy protections into three main points:21

First, DPS is not allowed to share any information about an individual’s citizenship status. There is only one exception: DPS can share this data with the Minnesota Secretary of State to improve voter registration records. Second, DPS is not allowed to share any information about individuals who applied for or received a Class D driver’s license with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unless DPS is ordered by a court to do so. Third, if DPS were to share information outside the agency, the receiving agency must sign a certification that they will not share the information with ICE.

There will also be no markings on the license itself indicating the license holder’s citizenship or immigration status, so law enforcement agents will not be able to tell an individual’s immigration status by just looking at his/her driver’s license.22

III. What are the potential challenges for the immigrant community?

So far, it seems like this new legislation will not only allow undocumented immigrants to legally drive in the great state they call home, but also improve safety and economy for all Minnesotans. Is this law a total blessing? What are some potential challenges for the immigrant community?  

One of the biggest challenges lies at the intersection between the driver’s license system and the automatic voter registration system in Minnesota. The opponents of Driver’s License for All say that this new legislation will allow undocumented immigrants to vote and jeopardize the integrity of the democratic system.23 The DPS has made it clear that an individual “must meet all requirements to register to vote, including being a U.S. citizen.”24 So, the new legislation does not change the requirements of voting in Minnesota.25 While the DPS’s clarification vitiates concerns, the convenient automatic voter registration system in Minnesota creates another serious issue for the immigrant community—accidental voter registration.

Currently, individuals can utilize Minnesota’s automatic voter registration system by following these steps:26

  1. DPS Application: During the regular course of certain DPS interactions, such as applying for, replacing, or renewing a driver’s license or state ID, applicants will supply identifying documents for the Secretary of State to determine whether they are eligible citizens for the automatic voter registration program.
  2. Citizenship filtering: Applicants who provide documents that establishes their citizenship status in the U.S. will be included in the automatic voter registration flow.
  3. Option to decline registration with receipt: For people who have demonstrated their citizenship status, they will be provided with a written receipt. They can then decline to register by returning the receipt to the DPS within 20 days of the date of the mailing notice.27
  4. Verification by election officials: For any person who is included in the system but does not decline, the Secretary of State will send data to county auditors, subject to the usual verification of eligibility that election officials undertake for any voter registration application. The county auditor will update existing voter registration records or register the person to vote accordingly.

On paper, these steps might look like a well-rounded safeguard to ensure that all qualified Minnesotan voters are registered to vote. But in reality, innocent human error can occur at any of the steps and lead to dire consequences for both documented and undocumented immigrants. 

During step one, the clerks at the DPS could misread the identifying documents and mistakenly believe the applicant is a citizen, especially since the U.S. immigration system is extremely complicated and immigrants carry a wide variety of paperwork. After that, the applicant who is not a citizen would be mistakenly enrolled in the automatic voter registration system. The individual would then receive a receipt in his/her mail. The individual must affirmatively report this error and decline to be registered within 20 days.28 Completing this affirmative report step can be challenging to many immigrants who are relatively new to the country and do not speak English as their first language. But if the individual failed to do that, even though it is merely a human error, he/she would still be subject to deportation for a false claim of citizenship.29 If the individual actually voted, they would fall under an additional ground of deportability—unlawful voters.30

Certainly, no system is perfect and human errors are inevitable. But when the consequences caused by human errors are so severe, it is worth thinking about ways to improve our voter registration system to protect both the immigrant community and the integrity of our democratic system.

IV. Conclusion

The new “Driver’s Licenses for All” law could help develop a safer environment for all Minnesotans and improve our state’s economy, but it also creates potential challenges for the exact community it aims to protect. As we celebrate this legislative landmark as a step towards making Minnesota a more inclusive community, we should also be reminded of the potential challenges immigrants might face and brainstorm ways to avoid accidental voter registration.

*Maggie Chen, J.D. Candidate, University of St. Thomas School of Law class of 2025, Associate Editor of the University of St. Thomas Law Journal. 

  1. Fact Sheet: Driver’s Licenses for All – March 2023, Immigrant L. Ctr. of Minn. (Mar. 15, 2023), https://www.ilcm.org/latest-news/fact-sheet-drivers-licenses-for-all-march-2023/. ↩︎
  2. Associated Press, ‘Driver’s Licenses for All’ begins in Minnesota, KARE11 (Sept. 7, 2023, 2:33 PM), https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/regardless-of-immigration-status-people-in-minnesota-can-begin-applying-drivers-licenses/89-c0e15d13-0b0f-4247-8b95-d16ed86dcca3. ↩︎
  3. Id. ↩︎
  4. Driver’s License for All, Driver & Vehicle Servs., Minn. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/dvs/Pages/drivers-license-for-all.aspx (last visited Jan. 1, 2024). ↩︎
  5. Id. ↩︎
  6. Driver & Vehicle Servs., Minn. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, Driver’s License For All Primary Secondary Document Fact Sheet (Dec. 15, 2023), https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/dvs/forms-documents/Documents/DL%20For%20All%20Primary%20Secondary%20Documents%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf. ↩︎
  7. Id. ↩︎
  8. Id. ↩︎
  9. Id. ↩︎
  10. Associated Press, supra note 2.   ↩︎
  11. States Offering Driver’s Licenses to Immigrants, Nat’l. Conf. of State Legislatures (Mar. 13, 2023), https://www.ncsl.org/immigration/states-offering-drivers-licenses-to-immigrants#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20Minnesota%20became%20the,HB%204%2FSB%2027. ↩︎
  12. Id. ↩︎
  13. Chris Burrell, Licenses for Undocumented Immigrants Seem to Be Showing Benefits in Connecticut, GBH (Feb. 4, 2020), https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2019-04-16/licenses-for-undocumented-immigrants-seem-to-be-showing-benefits-in-connecticut. ↩︎
  14. Hans Lueders, Jens Hainmueller, & Duncan Lawrence, Providing Driver’s Licenses for Unauthorized Immigrants in California Improves Traffic Safety, PNAS (Apr. 3, 2017), https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1618991114. ↩︎
  15. Driver & Vehicle Servs., Minn. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, Driver’s License For All: Frequently Asked Questions (2023), https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/dvs/forms-documents/Documents/DLForAll-FAQs-Long.pdf. ↩︎
  16. Thamanna Vasan, The Impact of Allowing All Immigrants Access to Driver’s Licenses, Colo. Fiscal Inst. (Mar. 2015), https://www.coloradofiscal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/drivers-license-for-undocument-immigrants-cfi.pdf. ↩︎
  17. Driver & Vehicle Servs., supra note 15. ↩︎
  18. Driver & Vehicle Servs., supra note 15. ↩︎
  19. See generally Jonathan S. Feinstein & Edward H. Kaplan, Why Hidden Populations Are So Hard to Count, Yale Insights (Dec. 13, 2018), https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/why-hidden-populations-are-so-hard-to-count. ↩︎
  20. Fact Sheet: Driver’s Licenses for All – March 2023, supra note 1. ↩︎
  21. Fact Sheet: Driver’s Licenses for All – March 2023, supra note 1. ↩︎
  22. Driver & Vehicle Servs., supra note 15. ↩︎
  23. WCCO Staff & Marielle Mohs, Gov. Walz Signs “Driver’s Licenses for All” Bill into Law, CBS (Mar. 7, 2023, 11:07 AM), https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/gov-walz-signs-drivers-licenses-for-all-bill-into-law/. ↩︎
  24. Driver & Vehicle Servs., supra note 15. ↩︎
  25. Driver & Vehicle Servs., supra note 15. ↩︎
  26. Automatic Voter Registration in Minnesota, Ctr. for Secure and Mod. Elections, https://www.house.mn.gov/comm/docs/058ebf15-c16c-458e-b479-3e3742f74cb6.pdf (last visited Jan. 11, 2024). ↩︎
  27. Minn. Stat. § 201.161 Subd. 2 (2023). ↩︎
  28. Id. ↩︎
  29. 8 U.S.C. §1227(a)(3)(D). ↩︎
  30. Id. §1227(a)(6). ↩︎

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