WBAL.com

The Maryland Senate and House of Delegates passed opposing bills late Monday on whether to give illegal immigrants access to driver’s licenses.

Maryland senators voted 36-11 around 10:30 p.m. to deny state ID to illegal immigrants, but several hours earlier the House of Delegates voted 77-60 to approve a two-license system.

In the House of Delegates bill, illegal immigrants would not be able to get new Maryland ID after the law takes effect. Those who already have Maryland ID, however, could renew their licenses and receive cards that would look different from other licenses and couldn’t be used to board planes or enter federal buildings.

Lawmakers in both chambers who backed access to licenses for illegal immigrants said tens of thousands of Maryland residents would be unable to drive children to school or themselves to work if the state cuts off licenses for all undocumented people. A recent Pew Hispanic Center study estimated there were more than 250,000 Maryland residents who were illegal immigrants.

“You want to call it amnesty, OK, let’s call it amnesty,” Prince George’s County Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk said. “It means you have a heart, you take care of those 200-and-something-thousand people so they can continue to have a life and continue to get to their job.”

Others argued that making licenses available to illegal immigrants isn’t fair to people who have followed U.S. immigration guidelines.

“If you vote against this bill, you know what you’re saying, you’re saying the rules don’t make any difference at all,” Sen. James Brochin, D-Baltimore County, said. “It doesn’t matter whether you play by the rules or not, you can sneak into the state of Maryland, you can go get your driver’s license without documentation and that’s fine.”

Maryland is one of only four states in the U.S. – and the only one east of the Rockies – that issues driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Those seeking to change the system have argued that the state has become a magnet for fraud by illegal immigrants up and down the eastern seaboard.