Immigrants without legal status in New Jersey will have to wait longer to apply for a new state driver s license that was supposed to launch in January, state motor vehicle officials announced Monday.
The delay was blamed on the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced the closure of Motor Vehicle Commission agencies across the state and delayed the training needed to implement the licenses. The MVC did not say when the driver s licenses would be available.
“Status-neutral licensing is important for many New Jerseyans, but the demands on MVC due to COVID-19 have made it impossible for us to complete the training and software changes required to implement it,” Sue Fulton, chief administrator of the Motor Vehicle Commission, said in a statement.
NorthJersey.com
HACKENSACK As he peered through a small window inside his cell at the Bergen County Jail, José Suchite Salguero knew something was amiss.
Protesters had been gathering outside the River Street building nightly to support the Newark man and other immigrant detainees who had been on a hunger strike.
But on the evening of Dec. 12, the scene was different, more volatile. There were far more police than normal, many in riot gear. Suchite Salguero said he saw police cars and trucks parked in an adjacent lot, many from outside the city.
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He had planned to address demonstrators by phone, as in the past, to share the story of his 11 months of detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and how desperately he wanted to be free. But as he waited to make the call, a confrontation erupted between police and protesters.