A Puerto Rican man sued Georgia for discriminatory driver’s license policies. Now the state is making changes

A series of reforms introduced in Georgia will now allow Puerto Ricans to transfer their driver’s licenses without having to take tests or meet requirements other US citizens wouldn’t have to meet, a human and civil rights group says.

“The reforms being enacted will finally afford Puerto Ricans the same privileges as other U.S. Citizens in Georgia: the ability to obtain a driver’s license, to drive to work, vote, and carry out countless other necessary tasks, while also ensuring their constitutional rights are no longer being violated,” the LatinoJustice Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) said in a news release.

The changes went into effect Monday and settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of Kenneth Caban Gonzalez.

Caban Gonzalez was born in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth and unincorporated territory of the United States, and is a US citizen.

He and other Puerto Ricans alleged that the state’s Department of Driver Services (DDS) engaged in discriminatory practices — including requiring transplants from Puerto Rico to answer questions about the island in order to obtain driver’s licenses.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation later released a report, finding DDS employees mishandled driver’s license applications and failed to follow protocol. One DDS employee was demoted and another fired.

The department’s previous policies treated Puerto Ricans like “second-class citizens,” according to Atteeyah Hollie, a senior attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, which litigated the case alongside PRLDEF.

“We trust that these reforms will bring relief and hope to Georgia’s growing Puerto Rican community,” Hollie said in a statement Monday.

Quizzed on Puerto Rican frogs and fritters

This week, more than two years after Caban Gonzalez submitted his application, he got his Georgia license, Southern Center for Human Rights communications manager Hannah Riley said on Twitter.

He first applied in 2017, the lawsuit says, after meeting Georgia’s 30-day residency requirement.

Caban Gonzalez was then subjected to special requirements directed solely toward Puerto Ricans. A state DDS inspector took his documents, quizzed him via an interpreter and then had him arrested for forgery, LatinoJustice attorney Jorge Luis Vasquez Jr. previously told CNN.

DDS spokeswoman Shevondah Leslie had told CNN the quiz questions came from a document the department released to comply with an open records request but said it was “not an authorized DDS document.”

The lawsuit claims the interview guide included questions quizzing the applicants on the archipelago, with queries such as:

• How long is the San Juan-Fajardo train ride? (There is no train)
• Who is Roberto Clemente? (A Puerto Rican-born baseball legend)
• What is the name of the frog native only to Puerto Rico? (Coqui)
• What is alcapurria? (A meat-filled plantain fritter)

The quiz bore a “strikingly disturbing resemblance to the tests applied by segregationists to block voter registration of people of color,” Southern Center for Human Rights senior attorney Gerry Weber previously said.

The DDS said in a statement to CNN that a senior manager was fired and another demoted to a non-law enforcement role after the GBI investigation into Caban Gonzalez’s case and the agency’s handling of documents from Puerto Rican drivers.

The employees’ actions “caused irreparable damage to the image and credibility of DDS and the State of Georgia,” DDS Commissioner Spencer R. Moore wrote in letters addressing the employees that were shared with CNN by a source close to the investigation.