undocumented immigrants<\/a> from getting behind the wheel.\u00a0<\/p>\nBut businesses that serve the Latino community worry that it will have a devastating impact on the local economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For 15 years, Steve Banda has sold vehicles and, more recently, food truck trailers from a lot in the Pleasant Grove neighborhood of Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You can come up here with a little thousand dollars down, get you a car to get you to work,” said Banda.<\/p>\n
Banda says 80% of his customers are undocumented immigrants who he says will no longer be allowed to buy or keep the vehicles they bought from him and are still paying for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That’s because the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles announced last week that “Foreign passports will no longer be accepted to title a vehicle in Texas unless they include a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stamp or mark confirming lawful admission into the United States.”<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of accounts out there right now, so that means there’s gonna be a lot of repossessions coming, and that means we’re gonna take a big hit,” Banda said.<\/p>\n
The decision to cross-check immigration status to register vehicles was made after Ellis County State Rep. Brian Harrison raised concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It endangers drivers on Texas roads,” said Harrison. “They were accepting any passport, not just an American passport, any passports well as driver’s licenses from other states that acknowledge that they are issuing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, so I was just gobsmacked.”<\/p>\n
Harrison says the move will also save Texans’ money.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ripple effect on auto dealers, mechanics, insurance agencies \u00a0<\/p>\n
“I think this had a lot to do with the skyrocketing auto insurance premiums by increasing the number of \u2014 not just illegal \u2014 but uninsured drivers on Texas roads, so I had to demand action,” said Harrison.<\/p>\n
It’s an action that has those opposed to it scheduling a community meeting for Wednesday night in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So if I can’t collect a payment, I’m gonna have to close my doors down,” Banda said.<\/p>\n
Banda said the new registration requirements will have a negative impact on auto dealers, mechanics and insurance agencies that have a large customer base of undocumented people.<\/p>\n
“It’s gonna hurt,” said Banda. “Everybody’s gonna be a trickle effect; you’re talking about people not going to work; you’re talking about people not being able to pay their rents, who’s gonna fix their car if you can’t register the car?”<\/p>\n
\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State leaders who have been taking a hard stance against illegal immigration just discovered and closed what they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[581,1724,27,29,293,28,292,149],"class_list":{"0":"post-63895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-dallas-county","9":"tag-immigration","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-texas-headlines","12":"tag-texas-legislature","13":"tag-texas-news","14":"tag-texas-politics","15":"tag-undocumented-immigrants"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}