Company 'Has Plan' To Retrieve Incorrect Licenses Issued To Illegal Immigrants
DENVER (CBS4) - The vice president of a company that sent regular Colorado driver's licenses to illegal immigrants says they has a plan to fix it.
More than 500 people received the incorrect licenses after they applied for Colorado's new non-citizen licenses. Now the head of the company says he plans to get them back.
MorphoTrust Vice President John Sennott arrived in Denver Friday night to meet with the Department of Motor Vehicles and Gov. John Hickenlooper about the mistake. He told CBS4 the company has already implemented a plan to get the incorrect licenses back.
"We have the mailing addresses for all of the individuals involved," Sennott said. "The state has a lot more information than that since the people came into the DMV offices and had to apply. They have email addresses, telephone numbers in just about every case."
The company will ask those who received the incorrect licenses to return them in exchange for a $100 gift card.
RELATED: Non-Citizen Driver's Licenses Bogging Down Colorado DMV | 524 Non-Citizens Received Regular Colorado Driver's Licenses, DMV Says
From the last check with the DMV, none of the 524 invalid licenses had been voluntarily returned. They only learned of the issue after one was sent to the wrong address. The licenses were supposed to have a black bar on the face that says it's "not valid for federal identification, voting, or public benefit purposes."
"We needed to make sure that the identity was correct, that the residency status was correct, and that they lived where they said they lived," said Director of Dept. of Revenue Barbara Brohl.
Julie Gonzales with the Colorado Latino Forum, a nonprofit group, played a key role in getting the law into effect. It says it's an unfortunate error but doesn't believe it will set the program back. She's confident the immigrant community will willingly return those that were misprinted.
"I also believe really strongly that the immigrant community is going to want to make sure that they have ... all of the ducks in a row in order to be able to drive safely and be able to have the right kind of identification," said Julie Gonzales with the Colorado Latino Forum.
In the meantime the Department of Revenue has invalidated those licenses. If an individual is stopped by law enforcement they'll know it was improperly issued.
