Under the terms of Special Order 7, if police stopped an unlicensed driver who met several requirements — including having auto insurance, valid identification and no previous citations for unlicensed driving — officers could no longer invoke the part of the state vehicle code that allowed them to confiscate the vehicle for 30 days, a punishment that came with fines and charges often exceeding $1,200.
In a city with an estimated 400,000 immigrants who are in the country illegally and forbidden by state law from obtaining driver’s licenses, Beck and the LAPD’s civilian oversight board, which approved the policy, argued that Special Order 7 was needed for moral and practical reasons. The 30-day holds, they said, unfairly burdened such drivers, who often are poor and feel they have no choice but risk having their cars seized to drive to work or take their children to school. Beck said he expected that the policy would encourage unlicensed drivers to take steps such as buying insurance to avoid the monthlong holds.
“It’s not so much that I am a dove on immigration,” Beck said in an earlier interview with The Times. “It’s that I’m a realist. I recognize that this is the population that I police. If I can take steps — legal steps — to make them a better population to police, then I will.”