No escape from narcos for Mexican beauty queen

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON
Associated Press

Maria Susana Flores walked up to the microphone in a sequined black dress, showing the judges of the Sinaloa Woman beauty contest the smile and the strut she had perfected in pageants since preschool.
"Women, no matter how hard you try, you cannot change your past," the 20-year-old contestant said in a sweet, high voice. "But you can choose today what your future will be."
Drums rolled as Susana left center stage and turned to pose, placing manicured hands on her tiny waist and shaking back long brown hair. The crowd whooped. The judges were dazzled by the dark-eyed beauty with the Penelope Cruz lips, and before long she was bowing her head to accept the 2012 crown.
If you had asked her that February weekend, the new Sinaloa Woman would have said the future she'd chosen was clear: a calendar of pageants as far away as China, a chance to compete for the coveted Miss Sinaloa title, and then, Miss Mexico.
But Susy, as she was called, had chosen another path at the crossroads of power and beauty in a state known for drug lords and pageant queens. It was a fateful choice.
In November, Susy died like a mobster's moll, carrying an AK-47 assault rifle into a spray of gunfire from Mexican soldiers. Hit below the neck, she dropped into a dirt field and bled to death, her carotid artery severed.
"I swear I would have never imagined, ever in my life, that my daughter would die like this," said Maria del Carmen Gamez, Susy's devoted manager and biggest fan.
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Sinaloa, with its acres of corn and tomatoes, is the birthplace of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel who is one of the wealthiest men in Mexico and one of the most-wanted men in the world. A long narrow state, it hugs the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean, though Mazatlan, its most popular resort town, has lost its luster under the violence of the drug wars.
The cartel's internal battles over the international cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana trade has given the state one of Mexico's highest murder rates, while the drug business has provided its riches. Thousands of Sinaloans are drawn wittingly or unwittingly into the narco economy, with vague titles such as "farmer" or "businessman" often serving as code for the more pedestrian jobs in the drug trade. Thousands more, from accountants to bar owners to musicians, cannot escape the reach of the drug cartels.
The settling of accounts among gangsters is as common here as car crashes, and neighborhoods are dotted with monuments to slain young men. The main cemetery in the state capital of Culiacan is a glittering city of mausoleums with towering cupolas, spiral staircases and Juliet balconies.
The city is peppered with shopping malls of shuttered stores and empty restaurants, known as "narco plazas" because they are little more than fronts for money laundering. On the outskirts of the city, meanwhile, motels boast Vegas-like replicas of the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.
Across this foreboding landscape bloom the beauty queens. The Miss Mexico title has been won seven times by the tall fine-featured women of Sinaloa. And beauty queens and drug lords have been drawn to each other for as long as the illegal narcotics trade has flourished in Sinaloa.
"Do you want beauty queens who are not involved in the state's dominant industry? Look for them in heaven," said Nery Cordova, a local university professor and author of "Narcoculture in Sinaloa."
El Chapo married a beauty queen - his latest wife.
Miss Sinaloa 2008 was forced to give up her crown after soldiers caught her and her boyfriend, an alleged cartel leader, with an arsenal of guns and wads of cash in a tale that inspired the acclaimed 2011 Mexican film, "Miss Bala" - Miss Bullet.
And Susy too, fell for a narco whose violence was so legendary his name is featured in "narco corridos," the brass band songs devoted to a culture that glorifies drug traffickers and their bloody exploits.
"People know I hardly forgive,' one of the songs says. "Sometimes I am bloodthirsty. I tear them to pieces. I like doing things my way."
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Gamez was enthralled with beauty contests long before the birth of her first daughter, Susy. She vividly remembered the day a classmate, Miss Mexico 1985, returned triumphant to their native town of Guamuchil to a lavish reception of mariachis, bands and parades.
Susy was only 4 when her mother signed her up for a pageant she had organized herself. The child won, and was crowned "Queen of the Red Cross."
It was an exciting moment in a young life soon marred by violence. Two years later, Susy's father was killed after his car was sprayed with bullets - not an uncommon occurrence in Sinaloa. He was 35.
Gamez still won't talk about that day in 1998, but according to newspaper accounts, Mario Flores was driving, his wife by his side, when a car approached them and a man opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol. Flores, hit in both hands, tried to speed away but crashed the truck into a house. His head was crushed when the pickup flipped. Though the truck was riddled with bullets, Gamez survived.
Like so many crimes in a state long on bloodshed and short on justice, this one was never solved. Hearsay blurred into rumor, and then myth. What happened? No one knows. What did he do for a living? "He was a farmer," his wife said.
"A known businessman," said the newspaper.
Susy was curious about her tall, green-eyed father.
"Tell me about him," she often asked her mother.
"He was a good man," Gamez would say.
Flores left a life insurance policy, six homes in the names of his three children and a venue for party rentals - more than enough to provide for the traumatized family, and for Susy's pageant career.
By age 10, Susy was a true competitor, winning the local "Miss Fantasy and Talent" pageant dressed as an angel and reciting a poem about her father, whom she called "an extraordinary man."
"She was very strong spiritually," her mother said. Susy rarely cried, but Gamez sensed pain in her sad eyes and worried about how much she slept.
The only time Susy really lit up was on stage. Waving from floats as Spring Queen, Homecoming Queen and Model of the Year, Susy, at 5-foot-6 (1.70 meters), grew into one of Guamuchil's prettiest and most popular girls, a role model for thousands who dreamed of winning a beauty contest and riding in a parade on top of a Hummer.
"I wanted to be just like her," said her closest cousin, Belyn Parra, 18.
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Susy wanted the best 15th birthday party in the history of Guamuchil, and her mother was determined to give it to her. She ordered her daughter a custom-made gown, in yellow shantung silk with off-the-shoulder sleeves, to rival the gown of Belle, the princess in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." It cost $2,700, Susy told her friends.
Gamez flew her to Hawaii for a photo shoot - with penguins, volcanos and white farmhouse porches as backdrops. Tourists stopped and asked to be photographed with the real-life princess.
But her quinceanera, as the Latin American fiesta is known, was not to be spared Sinaloa's signature bloodshed.
Susy's godfather for the party, singer Valentin "El Gallo de Oro" Elizalde, was one of the most popular artists in Sinaloa's banda music, with its brash accordions and horns. Two months before Susy's big event, the singer of "narco-corridos" was shot dead after a concert in the violence-wracked border state of Tamaulipas.
The killing, believed to be a narco hit, was never solved.
On a sunny Saturday in January 2007, Susy arrived at the Catholic church on Guamuchil's main avenue, escorted by 10 young men dressed as royal guards. The garden party that followed was held in white tents decorated with crystal chandeliers.
Susy's younger cousin, Belyn, made her First Communion at the same event. Belyn stood in awe as the band played, and a singer crooned a song written for Susy.
Her birthday gift was a $30,000 white, Chrysler 300C luxury sedan, a status symbol in Sinaloa. The local paper covered her party. The headline: "Magical."
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In 2011, shortly after Susy enrolled in a community college, rumors swirled that she was secretly dating one of El Chapo's top lieutenants, the head hit man and trafficker for a region surrounding Guamuchil - almost a quarter of the state.
There are many taboo subjects in Sinaloa, questions that hang unanswered in an air thick with fear. Generations of residents have learned what topics not to touch, and one of those was just how and where Susy might have met Orso Ivan Gastelum, known as "El Cholo Ivan."
Stocky, with black hair and thick eyebrows, El Cholo was a celebrated Sinaloa Cartel lieutenant who favored sleeveless shirts and hip-hop fashion over the traditional narco cowboy garb. He had been captured in 2005 on possession of illegal weapons, posted bail, escaped and was arrested again.
El Cholo was serving a 6-year sentence in a cell equipped with a refrigerator, Internet and satellite TV - a luxury that Latin American drug dealers typically buy with bribes - when he threw a party in August, 2009, inviting prostitutes and a local band into the penitentiary.
Taking a lesson from El Chapo, who famously escaped prison in a laundry truck, El Cholo walked out of the Aguaruto prison disguised as a woman, and has been on the lam ever since.
Songs about El Cholo tell the story of a man looking to avenge the death of his father, also reportedly a drug trafficker.
"Death became my hobby," one of the songs goes.
A relative said Susy and El Cholo started dating when she began attending university in Culiacan to pursue a degree in communications, the field her mother had insisted on over Susy's passion for veterinary medicine.
Friends said Susy was coy about who she was dating. She told childhood friend Alberth Valles that she couldn't say much for safety reasons. Valles assumed the boyfriend was in with the wrong crowd. Local informants, meanwhile, reported that the couple was frequently seen together.
Cousin Belyn knew everything, but kept it secret. She didn't want to betray her mentor, who was now encouraging the shorter but beautiful Belyn to follow her into the pageant world.
Gamez never believed there was any romance between her daughter and the cartel lieutenant.
"Susana wasn't a needy woman or a gold digger," she said. "She grew up with everything she could have wanted."
El Cholo, said to be in his mid-30s, may have had his own reasons for keeping the relationship quiet. Not only was he in the wind, moving from safe house to safe house, he also supposedly was married.
People began to talk.
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And then there was the kidnapping.
In the fall of 2011, gunmen drove a truck through six garage doors on a cul-de-sac before grabbing Gamez and her two younger children from their home. The family was held for 12 days.
"Susana was alone," Gamez said. "She was thinking she had lost her family, that we were never coming back."
Gamez was released along with her other daughter to raise a ransom for her son, who was finally freed three weeks later.
Even today, Gamez is reluctant to talk about it. Who were the kidnappers? Gamez shrugged. A rival of the local cartel leader, perhaps.
Gamez moved her family to relative safety in Culiacan and the following year, Susy began to prepare for her biggest contest, Miss Sinaloa 2012, in June. Besides numerous photo shoots, interviews and more than $2,000 in clothes, the winner would compete in the national Miss Mexico pageant, and if lucky, Miss Universe or Miss World.
But because many parents didn't want the exposure the pageant brought on their daughters, only 14 girls went to the casting call.
Miss Mexico's head of operations, Ana Laura Corral, arrived from the capital for the casting and videotaped the contestants. She and the famous Lupita Jones, the first Mexican to win Miss Universe, chose Susy and seven others.
A day after their names were published, a message was posted on Miss Sinaloa's official Facebook page: "Everyone in Guamuchil knows that Susana Flores is dating a hit man named Ivan, also known as El Cholo. He's killed a lot of people. You can verify it ... Ask anyone."
The Sinaloa contest coordinator dismissed those comments as pure gossip. Still, in the 2012 Miss Sinaloa pageant, Susy didn't even make the top four.
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On Nov. 23, Susy told her mother she was driving back to Guamuchil for her cousin's birthday party.
On the way, in the village of Caitime, a group of armed men set up an illegal checkpoint, demanding IDs and inspecting cars on a freeway flanked by corn and sorghum fields.
A woman called the army at 9:30 p.m. to complain. A special forces unit was deployed in the middle of the night from a nearby base. The area had been a disputed territory between El Cholo and a rival trafficker.
Soldiers arrived in Caitime at 5 a.m. and found several pickup trucks parked outside a house guarded by armed men. Some of the narcos ran to a truck as shooting broke out at a nearby safe house, leaving one gunman dead.
As the truck pulled away, soldiers gave chase. Several gunmen hijacked a second truck, and the first, a white pickup, stopped - blocking a two-lane highway and allowing the men in the second truck to escape into the Sierra Madre.
As soldiers closed in on the white truck, a young woman in a yellow blouse and black leggings jumped out holding an AK-47 assault rifle. Witnesses heard her scream "Don't shoot!"
But they did. Susy was struck in the collarbone and bled out in three minutes, as military helicopters hovered overhead.
Four men, alleged members of the Sinaloa cartel, were arrested that same day, but the army has released no details about the shooting.
Police told the media that Susy had been forced out of the truck as a human shield. But a federal prosecutor said there was gunpowder residue on her hands. Military reports of that night, however, do not say that she fired the rifle; and other state and federal officials said soldiers never noticed a woman firing.
One soldier testified that he had seen El Cholo during the shootout, and that he escaped.
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For her final ride down Guamuchil's main street, Susy wore a crown and a strapless, sparkly green gown. Musicians followed the white hearse, playing sousaphone, trombone and cymbals.
Susy was buried with her father in a mausoleum that Gamez expanded for her, adding murano glass lamps and marbled walls. She placed a red suede chair resembling a throne inside the chapel, "for the queen," she mumbled.
On the dirt road where Susy died sits a stone cross and montage of her best beauty queen moments - a Latin American tradition marking the spot where she last lived. The candles have melted and balloons celebrating the 21st birthday she never saw have withered.
Susy's younger cousin, Belyn, took up the mantle on the pageant circuit. At the town theatre for the Guamuchil Carnival beauty pageant in January, she and seven other contestants primped before the competition. Outside, more than two dozen soldiers surrounded the building with guns drawn - more than anyone had seen at a local pageant before.
"This is in memory of Susy," Belyn whispered, shortly before winning the crown, "In honor of her."
Susy's boyfriend tried to honor her too.
A month after her death, Guamuchil residents awoke to 67 banners hung about the town - the narco version of a public address system. They urged authorities to investigate the army operation in which Susy had been shot.
"The soldiers killed her because they came to kill me and they couldn't," the banners read. "The girl had never carried guns, much less fired them."
They were signed, "Sincerely, Cholo Ivan."
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Adriana Gomez Licon is on Twitter http://twitter.com/agomezlicon
Associated Press writer Martin Duran contributed to this story from Culiacan, Sinaloa.

Mexico’s war on crime now ranks among Latin America’s bloodiest conflicts

By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers

The revelation that as many as 27,000 people may have gone missing in Mexico in recent years renews attention to the huge human toll left by the war on crime that former President Felipe Calderon waged during his six years in office.
Combined with the 70,000 dead acknowledged recently by the new administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who succeeded Calderon on Dec. 1, the number of the disappeared makes the Calderon tenure the bloodiest period in Mexican history since the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century.
On Thursday, human rights campaigners said the numbers place Mexico far above some of the better-known Latin American human catastrophes of decades past, including the rule of military regimes in Argentina, Chile and Brazil and civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Lia Limon, Mexico’s deputy interior secretary for human rights and legal affairs, acknowledged on Wednesday that the government had compiled a list of 27,000 missing people after meeting with representatives of the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch.
Mexican Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong on Thursday promised to “look for all of them.” But he also warned there were no guarantees. “We start from a fundamental fact,” he said, “little information, little evidence and no rules.”
Civic activists hailed the government for disclosing the list, nonetheless.
“It is an acknowledgement by the Mexican state of the problem,” said Jorge Verastegui Gonzalez, spokesman for United Forces for Our Disappeared in Mexico, an advocacy group. “Recognition is a first step.”
Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, said any list of disappeared must be carefully scrutinized and cross-checked to eliminate those who are known dead or who later reappeared. He said that even if a final tally is smaller, the numbers are “overwhelming.”
Over the past six years, Vivanco said, Mexican authorities have collected 15,921 bodies or partial human remains that have never been identified.
“These figures speak for themselves,” he said at a news conference, adding that “in terms of forced disappearances, the numbers put Mexico almost at the vanguard of what lamentably has occurred in Latin America in this area.”
“How many people disappeared during the military dictatorship in Brazil? According to official figures, 137 people,” Vivanco said. “How many disappeared in Chile? The most recent official figures say around 3,000. How many disappeared in Argentina during the military dictatorship? According to the Sabato report ‘Never Again,’ around 10,000 people.”
In a detailed report released this week, Vivanco’s group said that it had investigated 249 cases of disappearances in Mexico. Of those, 149 involved people who witnesses saw being detained by military personnel or municipal, state or federal police. He said the actual number of such cases is certainly far higher, though what proportion of the total number of disappeared had government involvement is not clear.
Organized crime syndicates are thought to be responsible for the bulk of Mexico’s bloodshed, unleashing a wave of terror that included beheadings, dismemberments and public executions in a battle fueled by cash from an insatiable demand for cocaine and other drugs in the United States.
In some areas, the criminals operated as virtual shadow governments, particularly along the border with the United States.
But Vivanco said the likelihood that police and military were involved in at least some of the crimes increases the obligation of the Pena Nieto government to prosecute. To do otherwise, he said, would just encourage more abuses.
Vivanco called for “exemplary punishment” for soldiers and police found guilty of crimes with “sentences proportional to the atrocities that have been committed by public forces in a war against drug traffickers in which everything was permitted. This is the result of a war without any controls.”
Building cases from long-cold crimes will not be easy, he said, especially when “officials manipulated crime scenes, fabricated evidence to clear themselves and implicate others.”
Judicial investigators are often poorly trained, unable to carry out simple tasks for building a criminal case, added Nik Steinberg, a Mexico researcher for Human Rights Watch. In one case, he said, “investigators spoke to the wives of disappeared men, and then took DNA samples from the wives. . . . This is an example of the capabilities of the investigators they are sending.”
Vivanco noted that citizens placed more than 5,000 complaints of abuses against naval and army forces during the Calderon government. “How many led to conviction? Thirty-eight,” he added.

Recent years mark the bloodiest chapter in Mexico’s history since its national revolution, which took more than 1 million lives between 1910 and 1920.
Other Latin nations have known intense periods of bloodshed as well. A period between 1948 and 1958 in Colombia, known as La Violencia, left 200,000 people dead.
Civil wars in Central America also left vast tolls. A Guatemalan insurgency that began in 1960 and lasted until 1996 triggered bloodshed that left 200,000 Guatemalans dead and 50,000 missing. Civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador took 60,000 and 75,000 lives, respectively.

Calculating the disappeared in Mexico draws particular challenges because of the nation’s proximity to the United States and the tendency of some Mexicans to cross the border secretively, even slipping away without informing family members.
Some migrants – especially those from Central America – have fallen into the grasp of organized crime in northern Mexico and suffered mass killings. In August 2010, Mexican marines found the bodies of 72 migrants. Less than a year later, they found mass graves containing 193 bodies.
Verastegui said he believes the figure of 27,000 missing may actually be shy of the real number.
“In a great majority of the cases, people don’t dare denounce the crime,” he said, “because the authorities are the ones linked to organized crime or actually participated in the disappearances. The families are afraid.”

Fla. mayor's push for bilingual city gets rebuffed

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO
Associated Press

In many parts of Miami, Spanish is used as frequently - or more often - than English.
That's certainly case in the neighboring suburb of Doral, where an influx of immigrants from Latin America have transformed an idle community near the city's airport into flourishing neighborhood with cafeterias and businesses echoing the tastes and sounds of home.

Enter any restaurant here and customers are usually greeted first in Spanish. Some complain it can be hard to find anyone who speaks perfect English.

But when Doral's mayor tried to make Spanish the official second language on Wednesday, he was rebuffed by every council member and numerous constituents. And it wasn't from the small group of non-Hispanic residents who live here. It was largely from immigrants themselves.

"Our parents and some of us that are up here came from Latin America and other countries knowing that the United States has English as the language," Councilwoman Ana Maria Rodriguez said. "We came here knowing we had to adapt to the language of this country."

Nationwide, the Latino population has ballooned and the number of Spanish-language services has grown as a result. An estimated 34.5 million people in the United States speak Spanish at home - about 10 percent of the population - and everyone from small businesses and retail chains to politicians have taken note. When Florida Sen. Marco Rubio delivered the Republican response to the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday, he gave speeches in both languages.

But few cities have responded by declaring themselves officially bilingual. Far more states, and politicians, have adopted English-only policies. That has been reaffirmed in the recent immigration reform debate, with both Democrats and Republicans supporting English as a requirement for citizenship.

"Real reform means establishing a responsible pathway to earned citizenship, a path that includes passing a background check, paying taxes and a meaningful penalty, learning English, and going to the back of the line behind the folks trying to come here legally," President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

The United States has never declared English as its official language, though more than two dozen states have taken that step. Only one state - Hawaii - has adopted a second official language, naturally Hawaiian. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, there is sporadic use of Spanish and English for public affairs, but no state is considered officially bilingual. One Texas city, El Cenizo, adopted Spanish as its official language in 2006.

"With growing ethnic and racial diversity, we see more cases of people making suggestions about what should be the language of their local government," said Nestor Rodriguez, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. "These issues are always emotional and very symbolic. It's about who we are as people and who we are as a country."

Florida itself is an interesting case study: Miami-Dade County declared itself bilingual 40 years ago after a wave of Cuban exiles fled island and settled in South Florida. That ordinance was later overturned, but the rejection was thrown out in 1993. The state voted to make English the official language in 1988.

In Doral, nearly 80 percent of the population is Hispanic and almost 90 percent speak a language other than English at home. The city is affectionately known as "Doralzuela" because of its large number of Venezuelan residents.

Doral Mayor Luigi Boria, elected earlier this year, is a Venezuelan immigrant whose first language was Italian. He is an elegant, graying man who owns a successful computer technology business and speaks a halting English. He says he is still learning the language.

"Bueno, I think we have more than 80 percent of the population that already speak English and Spanish," he said in a telephone interview before Wednesday's vote. "I think what I'm doing is formalizing or regulating something that is already taking place."
He shared his own immigration story in introducing the resolution.

"It reminds me 23 years ago when I came to this country and I barely speak English and I made my way up," he told the audience of about 50 residents.

The resolution was largely symbolic; English would have remained the main language. But Boria argued that adopting Spanish as an official second language would help attract more business from Latin America and in turn create jobs. He noted Spanish has been used in Florida since St. Augustine was founded in 1565 - 40 years before Jamestown, Va., the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
"In Spanish, 'San Agustin,'" he said, pronouncing the city's name in Spanish.
The four city councilmembers, all Hispanic women whose families are from Mexico or Cuba, said they appreciated the spirit of the resolution but did not see its use. They highlighted the sizable number of Asian and Portuguese-speaking Brazilian immigrants in Doral as well.
Members of the audience who showed up to speak during public comments were almost equally divided between support and opposition.

"I learned the language, English," said Jaime Topp, a Cuban immigrant said. "That is the language of the United States."

He added that his wife, who doesn't speak Spanish, sometimes has trouble in Doral.
"There's times where she can't communicate," he said. "It's not right."

Ana Paola Cano, 30, who recently emigrated from Colombia, said she liked the resolution. She speaks English but felt more comfortable talking in Spanish, so the city clerk provided a translation - as she did at several points in the meeting, highlighting the need for dual language services.
"It doesn't mean I don't believe we all need to learn English," she said. "It's a nice welcome to those of us who are recently arrived."

The measure was tabled but may be modified and brought before the council again at its next meeting.

"OK, if there's no support," Boria said, provoking laughter from the audience.
On Thursday, he vowed to continue working on the measure.
"I still believe it's good for the city," he said. "It will bring more business and investment and that will create more jobs in the city. At the end of the day English will always be the first official language."

N.C. to give driver's licenses to immigrants in Deferred Action program

Bruce Siceloff and Anne Blythe
The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)

The state Division of Motor Vehicles will comply with a state attorney general’s opinion and issue driver’s licenses to thousands of young illegal immigrants who are eligible to drive because of a federal program that gives them temporary protection from deportation, Transportation Secretary Tony Tata said Thursday.

“We must balance the public safety and rights of citizens who have lawful status, with the newly accorded status of those who are legally present and wish to become citizens,” Tata said at a news conference.

Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office said Jan. 17 that participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program qualify for licenses because they are given work permits that prove their “legal presence” in North Carolina. That means they meet requirements set by state law for drivers who are not U.S. citizens.

On March 25, DMV offices will begin issuing licenses to DACA participants who pass tests and provide documentation. Tata said it would take time to train license examiners and make computer software changes necessary to produce the new licenses.

The issue affects teenagers and young adults – estimated at 18,000 to 50,000 in North Carolina – who were brought to the United States illegally as children. President Barack Obama’s DACA program provides two-year work permits and a deferral of deportation for young immigrants who meet certain requirements that involve age and education or military service.
The licenses will be printed with the same expiration dates shown on the drivers’ DACA work permits, Tata said, most of them for two years or less.

He was flanked by a dozen state and local law-enforcement officers. A few of them said the decision to issue the licenses would promote public safety.

“We wanted something where they could show us that they are eligible to drive … and can do it safely,” Guilford County Sheriff B.J. Barnes said. “This is something law enforcement has needed. This is all about safety for us. This is about knowing who we are dealing with.”
‘It’s going to eliminate a lot of chaos’

Tata said he also had consulted Gov. Pat McCrory, department lawyers and Hispanic and immigrant advocates as he decided how to respond to the attorney general’s legal advice.
The Rev. Carlos A. Cortez of Knightdale, pastor of the Primera Asamblea de Dios, thanked Tata.
“I just want to express our great appreciation for simply being the man you are, and to all who are collaborating with you in getting this done,” Cortez said at the news conference. “It’s going to eliminate a lot of chaos in our community.”

Raul Pinto, a Raleigh-based lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, wasn’t happy that young immigrants will have to wait six weeks to begin receiving licenses. But he endorsed Tata’s decision.
“It will benefit productive members of our community who have been going to school, going to work,” Pinto said. “So it’s an important decision.”
Jess George, executive director of the Charlotte-based Latin American Coalition, called the license decision “a shining example of how access and opportunity benefits all of our communities and the state as a whole.”

In January, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest blasted Obama’s program and the attorney general’s opinion supporting licenses for DACA participants. Forest did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Tata drew support from Kieran Shanahan, the state public safety secretary.
“Most people would say the rule of law is the most important thing in this country, and thank goodness we have it,” Shanahan said at the news conference.
A driver’s license is “the key to many things in our society,” Tata said.
“Now we know there are some people driving without licenses, so if they are approved under the DACA program they will be able to come in and get a license. We will know who there are, and they will have insurance, and we will make our roads safer,” Tata said.
Previous policy

His announcement reverses a DMV policy that was established quietly in September under the previous administration, but was not consistently enforced until after Tata took over at DOT in January.

President Obama announced the DACA program in June, and state DMV officials initially indicated that they would issue licenses to DACA participants. But in September, then-DMV Commissioner Mike Robertson called a halt and asked Cooper for a legal opinion. Robertson said DMV would not issue the licenses unless the attorney general affirmed their legality.
In a bulletin distributed Sept. 14 to DMV officials across the state, Robertson instructed license examiners not to issue licenses or ID cards “to anyone claiming ‘deferred action’ status under the ‘Dream Act’ ” until DMV received legal guidance. Robertson retired in October. DOT officials have found no evidence that local DMV employees received any further guidance on the issue over the next three months.

A present for immigrants
Immigrant advocates say substantial numbers of DACA participants were able to get licenses until early January, when DMV began enforcing Robertson’s policy more consistently. On Jan. 11, DMV revoked 13 licenses it said had been issued incorrectly. A few days later the agency went public with rules to block more DACA immigrants from being allowed to drive.

Tata said DMV officials simply took steps in January to enforce Robertson’s DACA policy.
“Today is the first time I have made a decision on this policy,” Tata said. Later, he added, “What happened in September was that a private decision was made, not communicated to anyone, so nobody knew that DMV was not issuing these licenses.”

Marty Rosenbluth, an immigration lawyer based in Durham, called Thursday’s announcement “a nice Valentine’s Day present for the immigrant community.”

He saw a political slant in the decision, issued under a newly elected Republican governor. Republican leaders have argued that their party must work harder to win political support from Hispanic voters.

“It’s very nice to know that the governor, Mr. Tata and Mr. Forest have decided that they have to follow state laws,” Rosenbluth said. “I think they realized that either they were going to have this huge battle that probably wasn’t going to sit well with the national Republican Party, or they were going to have to back down.”