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Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, once proposed allowing undocumented immigrants to secure drivers’ licenses, making the case that not doing so would be discriminatory.
“We’ve got to make sure that in this state we are not discriminating against documentation status. Right now, if you’re undocumented, you don’t get access to a driver’s license. You’re stuck,” El-Sayed said in a 2018 campaign interview.
At the time, El-Sayed was running for governor.
Eight years later, as he looks to join the U.S. Senate, the resurfaced clip sheds light on El-Sayed’s past thinking about how local governments should interact with illegal aliens and raises questions about whether granting them state identification would in some ways legitimize their presence in the U.S.
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Hans von Spakovsky, an elections expert for Advancing American Freedom, explained that a license can act as a doorway to a range of government benefits.
“Because America does not have a national ID card like the Europeans and other nations, state drivers’ licenses are a stand-in for that ID card. Issuing drivers’ licenses to aliens will help them in all the instances where a license is needed, from opening bank accounts to all types of other transactions,” Spakovsky said.
Spakovsky noted that I-9 forms, paperwork for employment eligibility, regularly require little else than a license.
“The key to getting aliens to self-deport would be to ensure that they cannot rent apartments, open bank accounts and take all of the other steps necessary to live and work in the U.S.,” Spakovsky said.
“Providing them driver’s licenses is a huge step in allowing them to easily live and work in the United States,” he added.
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In the 2018 clip, El-Sayed seemed concerned that illegal aliens would be ineligible for some of those advantages.
“You don’t get access to a lot of the basic things that the state offers everybody else, and I think that’s ridiculous and so we’ve got to stop discriminating that way,” El-Sayed said.
Although El-Sayed has rejected labels like “progressive” or “far-left,” he has advocated for a more government-first approach in many key areas like affordability, infrastructure and public services.
He’s advocated for Medicare for all, opposes corporate tax carve-outs, and he supports tuition-free access to higher education. When asked about promises to increase government provisions by candidates like Zohran Mamdani, El-Sayed said he believes that Democrats will trend in that direction.
“You’re seeing that kind of resonance here in Michigan for sure. And I’m not surprised that you’re seeing that in New York, too. Government ought to be available to set an equal playing field for everybody and to offer those basic things that everybody needs and deserves,” El-Sayed told Fox News Digital in an interview.
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El-Sayed’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how far government should go in providing some of those same services to non-residents. His campaign also did not address whether providing licenses for undocumented immigrants would be a tacit approval of their presence in the country.
El-Sayed faces off against Rep. Haley Stevens on Tuesday evening in the state’s primaries. Whoever secures the party’s nomination will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.
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