Four Hondurans who were wrongly denied renewal of their driver's licenses now have their new licenses!
A few days ago I informed you that a group of Hondurans in Indiana, under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), informed me that the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) had denied them the renewal of their driver's licenses because their documents showed an expiration date of January 5, 2012. This was despite the fact that the U.S. government had automatically extended the validity of their documents until July 5, 2012 while their re-registration applications were being processed.
Mr. Wilder Aparicio and several of his family members in Indiana called me because they discovered that I had successfully helped other people who had gone through the same thing in 2010 and wanted to know what they could do to solve their problem in Indiana.
I immediately took action and contacted the highest officials, including the attorney for the Indiana BMV. In a letter I informed them that Mr. Aparicio and others were discriminated against and mistreated when they went to renew their driver's licenses, and that they were also told that their documents were not valid.
The actions of the BMV employees constituted illegal behavior and I demanded prompt correction of the error. Fortunately, the officials responded quickly. They apologized for the error and made an appointment for the Hondurans to come back to the office where they had previously been denied renewal of their permits.
I am happy to inform you that thanks to my intervention, which I did free of charge, four people - Mr. Aparicio, Maira Guifarro, Francisco Vindel and José Guifarro - already have their licenses.
All four are truck drivers and without their commercial license they could not work. They lost 4 weeks of work, costing them thousands of dollars in income. They won't get that money back, but at least now they can go back to work. Congratulations!
