It started simple enough. After returning to the US, I found a letter from the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) that it was time to renew my drivers license, with a strong suggestion to do this online. That had been easy enough in the past - but we live in a new era!
A new, and apparently very important, part of the license renewal is the obligation to provide proof of legal residency. No problem, I thought - I have had US passports for 12 years now, and used my current passport just yesterday to travel back to the US. But things started going wrong after I had entered (and thoroughly double-checked) the information from my passport. I got the message that the verification of my passport had started, and that I should click "Next".
A few "next" buttons and web forms later, I was told that I had "successfully begun the renewal process", and instructed to print out a letter and take it to an RMV office. A section labeled "Documents Required" stated I needed my "US Passport for Lawful Presence Requirement".
Should be easy, I thought. Should be easy, thought the RMV person to whom I handed my passport. She scanned it. Then she scanned it again. Then again. Then she tried typing the information by hand. Only to be told that the passport could not be verified by the system. She tried to send me away without a new drivers license. When I pointed out that this was not an entirely satisfying solution, she handed me off to her supervisor.
The supervisor scanned my passport. And scanned it again. And again. Then she entered the information by hand. But her supervisory powers were insufficient to convince "the system" to verify the passport. When I pointed out that I had used the very same passport just a day earlier to enter the US, she pointed out that there was "no way" to overrule the system. She suggested that I should come back with my Naturalization Certificate.
Remembering what I had learned when reading Kafka in my youth, I understood that I should be happy (a) to have definitive instructions; (b) to live just an hour (round trip) from the RMV office; and (c) to have real hope that just one more visit might actually solve the issue! There was absolutely no point in comparing my situation with my wife's situation, who had been able to complete the entire process on the computer within a few minutes.
Thanks to excellent filing skills and driving a bit above the speed limit, I was back in the office before the supervisor could even finish her lunch break. Half an hour later, I walked out of the office with a temporary drivers license and a promise that the new license should arrive in the mail soon. Apparently, "the system" had accepted my Certificate of Naturalization!
A bit of research at home showed that I was definitely not the only person experiencing these problems. The local CBS station reported more than a year ago that "Drivers With New Passports Face Problems Trying To Renew Licenses". They cited an RMV spokesperson stating that "the issue seems to be isolated to passports issued within the last six months". But that was last year. A newer forum post from a software consultant for RMVs stated "any passport issued within the last 15 months is likely not going to verify". My passport was issued 20 months ago - they are not catching up, it seems! Fortunately, my Certificate of Naturalization is 12 years old, and has apparently made it into the USCIS SAVE system that the RMV uses.
So - when does your driver's license expire? If it's anytime soon, get started with the renewal, or at least make sure that you have the required documents. Most windsurfers I know have a passport, but it may not work, especially if it was issued within the last year or two. So make sure that you have one of the other allowed immigration documents handy: your birth certificate if you were born in the US, or a Certificate of Naturalization or similar if you were born in a different country.
I have had a driver's license in Massachusetts for more almost three decades now, so it was a bit annoying to spend half a day trying to renew my drivers license. But that's pretty minor compared to what some immigrants with temporary legal status experienced when trying to renew their commercial driver's licenses, as reported by the CommonWealth Journal. So I guess I'll have to count myself lucky!