Starting next week, proof of 'legal presence' in the U.S. will be needed for new licenses and renewals.

By MATT WICKENHEISER
Portland Press Herald

PORTLAND, Maine — Starting Monday, anyone who wants to get a driver's license in Maine will have to prove that they are in this country legally.

Two laws passed by the Maine Legislature in April changed the requirements for getting a license. The laws have proven controversial, particularly with civil libertarians, who see an invasion of personal rights and privacy. The laws were the target of an unsuccessful referendum campaign to repeal them.

The first law took effect in April, requiring that applicants show proof they are Maine residents by providing tax returns, paycheck stubs, utility bills or other documentation.

The second law, establishing a ''legal presence'' requirement, actually takes effect on Saturday, although state Bureau of Motor Vehicle offices aren't open on weekends.

A variety of documents prove legal presence in the U.S., including certified birth certificates, permanent resident cards, passports, certificates of naturalization, resident alien cards and work visas.

The two rules apply both to new licenses and renewals, and to state-issued identifications.

Don Cookson, spokesman for the Secretary of State's Office, said the proof of residency caused some headaches in April, but they were solved quickly.

''A lot of people could go out and riffle through their (vehicle's) glove box and find something sufficient,'' Cookson said.

Proof of legal presence will be more of a ''sticky wicket,'' he said. ''But we're quite confident that the vast majority of Mainers will have somewhere - perhaps not in their immediate possession - something they can retrieve without too much grief, one of the documents that will be suitable for proving legal presence.''

He said 220,000 licenses and IDs are issued each year in Maine.

The new requirements will ''have an impact,'' he said, but ''we aren't really anticipating a major impact.'' Managers at each of the 13 Bureau of Motor Vehicle offices have been trained in the new procedures, and they have trained the front-line workers, Cookson said.

For license renewals, people who have a hard time getting the proper documentation may be given a 30-day temporary extension on their license, Cookson said.

Supporters of the law say it is necessary to make Maine's standards for getting a license on par with those in other New England states, and to curtail fraud.

Critics say the requirements have put Maine on the path toward complying with the federal Real ID program.

Real ID requires states to tighten their license requirements, including verification of citizenship and residency. It also mandates digital photos of all applicants and the pooling of those photos in a ''hub'' that's accessible to all states.

David Farmer, spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci, said the governor supports the legal presence and proof of residency requirements.

The new laws also require the Secretary of State's Office to study the most cost-effective way to use biometric technology to identify applicants.

Examples of biometrics are fingerprint scanners, retinal scanners and facial pattern recognition programs.

Using biometrics would fight fraud, Farmer said, by enabling the state to make sure that people aren't applying for multiple licenses under different names. The data would not be shared with the federal government, he said.

A petition drive aimed at repealing the laws failed last summer. The coalition of civil liberties groups known as Maine People for Real Freedom said it gathered only 30,019 signatures from registered voters, far short of the 55,087 needed to put the question on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Kathleen McGee, an organizer of the petition drive, said the coalition will work with state lawmakers to propose legislation to repeal some of the more onerous parts of the laws, including the biometrics requirement.

That requirement ''gets to be far too Big Brother, far too involved in our private lives,'' she said.

Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, said her group is concerned ''that Mainers will be jumping through hoops.''

The people most affected will be the elderly, low-income residents, immigrants and others who may have trouble tracking down the necessary documentation, she said.

The state and the federal Department of Homeland Security have been wrestling over Real ID for the past two years. The laws passed by the Legislature were seen as a way to avert a direct confrontation with the federal government until an agreement could be worked out -æwith what will be a new administration.

''It was to keep our driver's licenses so people could use them between now and next year to go into a federal building, get onto an airplane - we were running out of time,'' said Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham.

Copyright 2008 Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc.