As the ongoing battle over immigration continues, some immigrants in the U.S. who are documented have reportedly been denied driver’s licenses.
Immigration attorney Nelson Castillo explained on The Rundown Tuesday that immigrants protected under the Temporary Protective Status (TPS) obtain a work permit which allows them to get a social security number and, eventually, their driver’s license. The permit is automatically renewed by the government when it expires.
But because there are so many people who remain in the country under TPS, it has become increasingly difficult to issue updated physical permits–causing some to even lose their jobs.
But Castillo notes that there are other ways to check an immigrant’s TPS status besides a physical permit: the DMV, for example, can check the person’s status through their own database, or through the Federal Register Notice.
Watch the full conversation with immigration attorney Nelson Castillo in the video player above.
Nicole Acevedo
I am a bilingual national reporter specializing in issues affecting Latino communities in the U.S., the Caribbean and Latin America. Experience I have produced hundreds of stories across digital, radio and broadcast platforms throughout my career — reporting on everything from elections, natural disasters and immigration to pop culture trends, social justice issues and breaking news. I'm best known for my coverage of the crises affecting Puerto Rico, including its reconstruction process after Hurricane Maria, the island’s financial crisis and more. After graduating from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a bachelor's degree in broadcast and digital journalism in 2016, I joined the inaugural cohort of students who helped launch the Spanish-language bilingual journalism master’s program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Awards I was a 2024 finalist for the NAHJ/University of Florida award in investigative journalism for my reporting uncovering the challenges Puerto Rican families face in caring for their elders, given that the island’s population is aging faster than most places on Earth and fragmented by migration. I served as the lead reporter and writer of NBC News' 2022 Hispanic Heritage Month project “Who’s Latino? Amid growing numbers the definition is expanding,” which was awarded an NAHJ Ñ Award for best Latino issues story for print/digital.