New joy for TN visa -- renew driver's license every year

We live in Virginia. My wife just went to renew her driver's license and they told her of a new and exciting rule: you can't renew your driver's license past your TN renewal date.

Plus you can't renew online, you have to do it in person. I love those hour long lineups at the DMV!

Life under a TN visa is just so exciting, I can barely contain myself.

It's not just the stress and expense of renewing my TN visa every year, now I get to renew my driver's license every year too.

This sounds very strange, providing the license for a year.

Here is Virginia's requirement for legal presence:
http://www.dmv.state.va.us/webdoc/citiz ... presqa.asp

Ask them how they are determining the one year status - when you can have unlimited renewals.

I can understand when you apply the first time for your license they would know you are on a TN for a year, since you're using your passport, etc. But when you renew your license, aren't you simply using your SSN card, previous driver's license?

Very interesting.

They're not the only state who do this. Lots of 'em will only give a driver's license valid for the time period on their visa. Yep, its a pain in the ass.

I'm in VA and was the same for my cr-1 visa (marriage based). It was good or 2 yrs,and my Drivers license expired on the date my cr-1 visa did. Then when I applied for my 10 yr green card, one gets a 1 yr extension, until the 10 yr card arrives, and my drivers license was only extended for that 1 yr. Each state varies, but that was my experience for VA.

Ask them how they are determining the one year status - when you can have unlimited renewals.

It's because of the Real ID Act, what most States are doing is amending their laws so your DL can only remain valid until the expiry date on your I-94. I think the majority of States now take this position, the few exceptions are New Mexico, Texas and Florida (and a few others that have yet to have their legislatures meet on the issue, although there are bills pending).

Florida specifically took note of Federal law, because you do not necessarily have to get an I-94 when you get a TN-1 entry, so they looked at the situation more intelligently and Canadian citizens can get a Florida DL that is valid for a year from the date of application, rather than until the date the I-94 expires. This gives applicants a bit more flexibility, because it means you don't have to tie your DL renewal religiously to your TN-1 renewal.

New Mexico is I think the only State that has used the "alternative" provision in the Real ID Act, which allows States to issue DLs to undocumented aliens provided the DL is readily distinguishable (via colour) from an ordinary DL.

I'm in correspondence with the Nevada AG at the moment attempting to explain that it is possible for Canadians to enter the US in categories other than B-1/2 without an I-94, so their law that requires aliens in a non-immigrant classification who are resident in Nevada to present an I-94 is unworkable. I picked Nevada because their law is particularly inflexible, in many States the regulations are made by the AG or other agency under a rule-making provision in the law, however in Nevada, the law specifically states that no DL shall be issued to a person who is not a US citizen other than as provided under some very tough regulations.

Nevada also doesn't recognise many other States DLs when you apply for a Nevada licence, such as Texas and New Mexico.

INS allows you to renew your TN/TD by mail, as long as you mail your app. before your TN expires (site says can take up to 90 days), my understanding is you are still in status and your priority post receipt is your proof of application date. So you will be in status.unable to leave the country.and unable to DRIVE! And should your app be rejected, you can't drive out of the country because you don't have a license. Am I correct? Thats just crazy, I must be wrong.right? Is there a workaround?

My VA license was issued before the change, sounds like I might need to move to MD to avoid this foolishness.

It will be the same in every State eventually, although like I said New Mexico, Florida and Texas have designed their laws around it because they have such large immigrant populations they had to.

I doubt moving to Maryland or anywhere else would improve the situation. You're right, if you renew by mail you don't get a new I-94 so you're screwed. All you can do is write to the AG and ask for the law to be amended because it's stupid.

Florida for example wouldn't be a problem, you just have to renew your licence every year, but you don't have to present anything other than a Canadian passport and your DL.

I am not sure every state will eventually be this foolish. Originally this came out of the push for real-id, which is a real goat rope, even VA is now backing away from implementing it as DHS wants. The problem here is obviously states are trying to be enforce INS, when they clearly don't understand how the INS works (even the INS, doesn't fully understand that). It wouldn't be so bad if they were just a bit more flexible and allowed a grace period of 6 months.

They went from zero enforcement to zero tolerance, and thats just zero intelligence.

I suspect what will happen is that Canadians will moan about it so much that other States will have to follow the lead of States like Florida. Most States are simply using a one-size-fits-all policy and because Canada is not subject to the same immigration rules (as many categories do not require a visa), it doesn't fit into that size.