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Midland woman speaks on driver's license issue

Norma Carrasco is trying to find answers after she applied for a new physical copy of her driver's license back in early February, but has yet to receive it.

MIDLAND, Texas — UPDATE: Local DPS Sergeant Steven Blanco said after the situation was reviewed, Norma Carrasco's situation was an isolated incident. The United States Postal Service was unaware of any issues, no stats or complaints were seen and no evidence of mail delivery issues or sorting issues were found. 

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When ordering a driver’s license in the State of Texas, it typically takes a couple of weeks for the physical copy to come in the mail.

However, one Midland resident has been waiting for nearly two months to receive it.

Norma Carrasco applied for a new driver’s license in early February, and she doesn't feel she is alone with this rare issue.

Carrasco said that she spoke with a mother and daughter who were experiencing the same problem, and despite her efforts to get it resolved, she is still stuck waiting.

“I know if I got pulled over or if I was in an accident or something, I’m driving without a valid driver’s license," said Carrasco. "It’s very concerning for me to be in this situation.”

After meeting with the postal office in Downtown Midland, Carrasco was able to get information from the postmaster.

“And the postmaster ended up calling me that day and telling me that 40-50% of all driver’s license that are issued out of Austin are being returned due to them not being accepted at the distribution center," said Carrasco. "Something to do with the size of the mailer or something, it’s not recognizing in the machine. They don’t know how to distribute them, so they’re being sent back.”

Carrasco’s temporary printed driver’s license has expired, and as she has tried to get another one from the Texas Department of Public Safety so she can drive legally. However, she has been left waiting longer than expected.

“Well they didn’t let me apply again because I’d already applied," said Carrasco. "They wouldn’t issue me another temporary, so what they did was they sent it through the computer to have a remake of the license, and sent back out, and as of today [Tuesday] I still don’t have a new license with the current information on it.”

Carrasco has contacted DPS in Austin in an attempt to solve the problem, but she has not heard back from the state office.

“I asked the postmaster, ‘did you contact Austin and let them know what the problem is?’," said Carrasco. "And you know what he actually told me, he said, ‘we thought they would have figured it out by now.’ And I said, ‘somebody needs to step up and make a concerted effort to make sure that this gets resolved, because there is a problem.’”

Local DPS Sergeant Steven Blanco said he was unaware of any issues, but would look into it further. Sergeant Blanco said DPS uses standard-size envelopes to mail licenses to Texas residents. 

NewsWest 9 will provide updates if any additional information is gained regarding this situation.

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