When two young men in baggy shorts cinched a cord around Sarafin Solorzano's neck, yanked him backward and rummaged through his pockets, he had two weeks' pay stashed in his wallet. But gasping for air on the curbside just moments later, it dawned on him that perhaps he shouldn't report the assault he'd just survived.

Solorzano, mugged a year ago at a bus stop in Little Havana, said three of his close friends who also were robbed recently didn't report the crimes. They fear they would provoke suspicion at police precincts if they couldn't produce a driver's license.

Florida and 24 other states currently prohibit undocumented immigrants from obtaining a driver's license, and the U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday to extend the ban nationwide.

Immigration advocates and civil rights groups point to stories like Solorzano's to support their contention that the license restriction doesn't actually make anyone any safer, and that it sometimes hampers law enforcement outright.

"We want people to really examine this policy, not only its impact on immigrants, but to really question if it makes us less safe rather than more safe," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. "A lot of restrictions [on immigrants] are giving people a false sense of security."

The House on Friday approved a bill to create a national intelligence director and fortify security based on recommendations of the 9-11 commission. But House Republicans tagged several immigration clauses onto their version of the initiative. Along with the driver's license provision, the bill would allow authorities to skip over legal proceedings when deporting some immigrants. It would also annul ID cards issued by foreign consulates, such as the matricula consular issued to Mexican nationals.

The 9-11 commission itself has criticized the add-ons, which are not in the Senate version of the bill and will now be hashed out in conference.

Advocates like Little say issuing driver licenses to all immigrants can encourage them to report crimes, help them get car insurance and stem the business of fraudulent ID.

Fearful of the police, illegal immigrants often are reluctant to come forward, rights workers say, leaving crimes unreported and criminals on the streets.

"I didn't go to the police immediately because I didn't have any ID," said the 47-year-old Solorzano, a former civil servant from Nicaragua who overstayed his tourist visa in the United States two years ago. "I was scared. I thought maybe the police would put me in jail and I could be there for days."

Without a driver's license, illegal immigrants can't buy car insurance, so they are more likely to flee after car accidents, advocates say.

Meanwhile, $40 and a click on a computer screen can buy a fraudulent driving permit in a booming underground trade. Newcomers to the United States are particularly vulnerable to the scheme.

Florida has denied driver's licenses to illegal immigrants since 1999, but the law came under fresh scrutiny after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Authorities revealed that police had pulled over Mohammed Atta, the ringleader, but he presented a valid Florida driver's license, even though his visa had expired, and was allowed to go.

Gov. Jeb Bush responded by tying driver's license terms to the expiration of tourist and student visas.

The Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates restricting immigration, opposes putting licenses into the pockets of illegal immigrants, partly because the card has become a de facto national ID, according to the group's director of research, Steven Camarota. It bestows access to everything from library cards to commercial airliners to federal buildings, with minimal security checks, while sending the message that the United States doesn't take its own immigration requirements seriously, Camarota said.

Law enforcement officials also have split on whether licensing restrictions enhance or hinder security. Some say the current system pushes immigrants underground, where they're harder to track.

"Documentation alone doesn't solve the problem. Even if you have a proper ID, that doesn't prevent you from being a terrorist," said Miami police chief John Timoney. An immigrant himself, of Irish descent, Timoney declined to say whether he agreed with driver's license restrictions in place in Florida, but he stressed that everyone is entitled to police protection.

"If you're robbed, who cares where you're from? You could be from Mars. You need a city service," he said.

After Solorzano was mugged, he eventually worked up the courage to report the robbery the next day, with photocopies of his passport in hand. He was told that if he'd reacted more quickly the police would have had a much better chance of catching his attackers.

As lawmakers review arguments for and against the restrictions next week, Solorzano will travel three bus routes every day to the construction site where he works. The 40-minute journey takes him through marginal neighborhoods well after dark, and sometimes leaves him waiting at bus stops on abandoned streets. But what bothers him most, he said, is the feeling that he himself might be seen as a danger to society.

"We know we're here illegally," said Solorzano, who left his steady job at Nicaragua's foreign ministry and came to the United States out of disgust for political corruption in his homeland. "But we're being painted as people who came here to break laws. We want to obey the law. Having a driver's license used to be a way for us to show we comply with legal requirements when we can."

Ruth Morris can be reached at rmorris@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4691.

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