Immigrants prep months early for California driver’s license tests

SANTA ANA, Calif. – There’s a lot riding on a California law to grant driver’s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally, and supporters are already preparing prospective drivers to pass the test required to get one.

A Mexican Consulate is hosting monthly driver’s license test preparation classes. A community college is designing a 15-hour course to help immigrants prepare. And the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles has put together new audio materials in Spanish with months to go before the new licenses are issued.

The push comes after Nevada saw 90 percent of immigrants flunk the written test in the first few weeks a new driver authorization card was offered. The California DMV is also concerned that immigrants may not know they need to take a written test when they apply for a license, and that some applicants may not have the literacy proficiency needed to pass.

“What we’re being sensitive to is we have a population that probably has never come to a DMV, doesn’t really know what they can expect,” said Lizette Mata, the DMV’s deputy director of special projects, who has been traveling the state to meet with community groups. “I’ve had people tell me: ‘I didn’t know I need to take the exam the day I applied.’ ”

California is one of a slew of states that recently approved driver’s licenses for immigrants in the country illegally. As the nation’s most populous state and home to immigrants from many countries, state officials want the new license in California to be an example for other states to follow.

Getting immigrants to pass the test is critical to ensuring the success of the new license. Supporters pushed for the license to make life easier for California’s immigrants and to create safer road conditions for everyone, arguing that many immigrants already get behind the wheel but lack the training and testing required of other drivers and may not carry insurance.

The state expects 1.4 million people will apply for the license once it is available in 2015 and plans to open five new offices to handle the anticipated deluge of applications.

Like legal residents, the immigrants will need to provide proof of identity and pass written and road tests to obtain the license, which will contain a distinct marker.

After Nevada’s high failure rate, immigrants have been urged to start preparing for the written test early.

“We didn’t want to wait to the last minute,” said Berenice Diaz Ceballos, consul of Mexico in Oxnard. She said her office has been holding information sessions about what prospective applicants should do to prepare, and has seen an uptick in requests for passports and consular ID cards, which may be required for the new licenses.

In Nevada, officials were surprised by the failure rate after they updated a Spanish version of the driver handbook and met with community groups to publicize the driver authorization cards, said David Fierro, a Nevada DMV spokesman. Since those first few weeks, the failure rate has fallen to about 66 percent, much closer to the 57 percent of those seeking a traditional license, he said.

“We didn’t think the failure rate was going to be as high as it was,” Fierro said. “The word circulated to people that there is a test, and if you don’t know the answers, you’re going to fail.”