A plan to offer special cards that would allow undocumented immigrants a legal means to drive vehicles in the state survived the Assembly’s budget vote early Saturday.

The driver cards would be issued to people without proof of legal presence in the country, but would be used only for the purposes of driving and not as documentation to determine immigration status, according to the proposal. The proposal was approved by the joint finance committee in late May.

The budget was approved 50-48, almost exclusively along party lines, with no Republicans voting in favor of it. Republicans offered to amend the section pertaining to the driver cards, but the measure was tabled along with other amendments, said state Rep. Samantha Kerkman, R-Randall.

“Our amendment was basically to take it out of the joint finance version,” Kerkman said. “I just feel we shouldn’t be giving driver’s licenses to folks who aren’t here legally because we’ve had two incidents” — in which illegal immigrants driving were involved in deaths — “with Deputy (Frank) Fabiano and Scott Procknow. I feel it shouldn’t be a part of the state budget. If anything, it should be a separate policy debate when it comes to immigration laws.”

However, a coalition of nearly two dozen groups, including the Wisconsin State Troopers Association and the police chiefs of Milwaukee and Madison, are in favor of the cards. The state’s dairy industry also supports the measure, as farmers are having a difficult time finding workers and are relying on immigrants who must be able to drive, according to the Dairy Business Association.

The state estimates that about 60,000 people will apply for the cards. The proposed budget estimates revenues of $3.8 million to be generated by fees associated with applications. About 70 percent of the revenue would fund 23 positions.

Kerkman said during the debate on the cards that the legislative fiscal bureau couldn’t tell her where else such cards were currently being used.

Utah is the only state with a two-tiered system, one with driver’s licenses and driver cards, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. About 40,000 drivers in Utah have the cards, which were created with that state’s program in 2005 as an attempt to end voter fraud among illegal immigrants who were receiving regular licenses.

Tennessee ended a driver certification program after two years in 2006 after federal investigators found that some testing centers were selling driver’s licenses and certificates to out-of-state illegal immigrants.

Washington, Illinois and New Mexico are the only states that allow illegal immigrants to receive driver’s licenses. Maryland once allowed it, but a new ban on such licenses recently took effect. In Hawaii, illegal immigrants may obtain a state identification, but not a driver’s license.

The Wisconsin law was modeled after Utah’s, said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, a Milwaukee-based group that advocates for immigrants. She and other immigrant-rights advocates said the cards are necessary to ensure safety and that people who are driving are tested, licensed and insured.