Soon after New York Times Magazine ran a profile of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Jose Antonio Vargas, as an undocumented immigrant the state of Washington started investigating his driver’s license.
Earlier this year Vargas obtained a driver’s license in Washington State though he is an illegal alien and resides in Oregon. Washington State and New Mexico are the only states that offer driver’s licenses to individuals even if they don’t have a social security number but they must be residents of the state. Upon investigation Washington state authorities determined Vargas was not a resident of the state and therefore canceled the license.
Vargas noted that he sees this as another set back and the “collective struggle” of the immigrant. It is not known if he has any other form of identification.
Vargas won the Pulitzer in 2008 as a part of the Washington Post team reporting on the Virginia tech shootings. For their part the Washington Post has labeled Vargas’ actions “wrong”. Vargas came to the U.S. at age 12 and found out that he was in the country illegally when he was 16 years old.
He is currently writing for other publications and more importantly to him trying to persuade the President and Congress to take on the issue of mmigration reform.
