Border security and illegal immigration have become a top election issue, but Governor Shapiro’s PennDOT wants to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses.

While the political battles over the border crisis rage in border states and large metropolitan areas previously self-designated as “sanctuary cities”, Pennsylvania is not being spared. The Biden administration is enacting retribution on the governors of Texas and Florida, who have been the most vocal in their criticism of Biden’s inaction on border security, by flying illegal immigrants back to those states.

Pennsylvania was previously a target for these “ghost flights”, which transport illegal immigrants in the dead of night in an attempt to evade public notice. Several confirmed flights from El Paso in 2021 were revealed the following year.

Illegal immigration continues to cause political headaches and public safety problems in the Keystone state, prompting Republican State Representative Mike Cabell to propose legislation to make illegal entry into Pennsylvania a state crime. Cabell based his bill off a similar Texas law and said it criminalizes entry into the state by a non-citizen through “any location other than a lawful port of entry.”

In addition to Cabell’s proposal, Republicans in the State Senate passed a resolution calling on Governor Josh Shapiro to send National Guard troops to the border in Texas to assist local officials in border security enforcement. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted Cabell’s Democrat counterparts, however, are leaning into the illegal immigration crisis in a different way: proposing legislation to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. Governor Shapiro’s Department of Transportation supports the proposal.

According to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the state had been registering non-citizens in the country legally to vote while they obtained driver’s licenses. This led the Foundation to file a lawsuit seeking to obtain all information related to the scandal from the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. One now-retired member of Congress previously introduced federal legislation seeking to prevent this from happening again by requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

The actions by Pennsylvania Democrats are not aligned with public polling. A February Gallup survey showed illegal immigration having become the largest issue for Americans. The last time immigration topped Gallup polling was 2019.