GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Take it from Arlene Pence: Oregon’s new driver’s license rules requiring proof that you’re in the country legally can be a royal pain for married women.
The regulations for renewing, replacing or obtaining a license took effect July 1 and require a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles office. No longer can you handle a renewal through the mail.
You have to take proof of U.S. citizenship or lawful presence in the country, proof of Social Security number or proof that you are not entitled to a Social Security number if you do not have one, and proof of your full legal name.
If you haven’t changed your name, you can meet the requirements with a birth certificate and a Social Security card. A married woman would be fine with both those documents and a wedding certificate.
Pence’s license expired Thursday, so she went down to the DMV office Monday armed with her birth certificate, her marriage certificate from 1954 and her Medicare card, which sufficed as a Social Security card because she lost hers years ago.
“I felt I had the adequate documents,” said Pence, 71, a licensed driver since 1955.
But the marriage certificate that’s been pressed between pages of a scrapbook for more than half a century is nothing more than a keepsake as far as the government is concerned. It wasn’t the one issued by the county when she got married in 1954.
“It can’t be the souvenir. It has to be the certified one,” said Bambi Ayles, manager of the Grants Pass DMV office.
Pence made the deadline, though. A copy of her wedding certificate arrived on Thursday, with a few hours left for her to drive to the office from her home 11 miles west of Grants Pass.
“I fully agree that we need to get absolute proof of ID and citizenship to address the problems we have with illegal aliens in this country,” she said.
But she thinks the process needs improving.
“They’ve really messed it up,” she said.
Ayles said renewal notices are sent out 90 days in advance, and she and state officials said most people are handling the new procedure in a timely fashion.
“I’ve heard from field offices all around the state,” said department spokesman David House. “The vast majority of people are coming in prepared.”
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