In the 2015, the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS) began denying licenses to many non-U.S. citizens who are in the United States with employment authorization, also known as a work permit. DDS had previously granted driver's licenses to these same immigrants for decades. The change came as DDS secretly changed their interpretation of existing law and decided that some immigrants with work permits did not have the proper "immigration status," However, the Georgia legislature had already decided that the immigrants whose licenses DDS is denying do in fact have the proper immigration status for Georgia driver’s licenses. How is DDS acting against Georgia law? The relevant Georgia law is found in O.C.G.A. § 40-5-21.1, “Temporary licenses, permits, or special identification cards; foreign licenses or identification cards as evidence of legal presence in the United States, ” and specifically states that the following non-citizens may obtain a Georgia driv...
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