She never had a problem renewing or receiving a driver's license until last summer.

To abide by state law, Franklin notified the state Department of Motor Vehicles online of her new address after moving from James Island to Johns Island.

But checking the box for "non-United States" citizen triggered a 6-month-long headache to renew her license.

She was told she needed to renew her license in person, so she first went to the DMV office closest to MUSC. Told they no longer served foreign citizens, she was directed to one of the 16 offices in the state that processes foreigners' requests. The closest option was a 20-minute drive to Leeds Avenue.

Upon arrival, she was sent home because she did not have her passport. On her return trip, this time with passport in hand, she needed a document with her current address. She said she was given conflicting information on the documents she needed by DMV workers.

On her third trip to Leeds Avenue, she received a temporary driver's license, an 8 x 11-inch piece of paper that identified her, but was told her paperwork needed to be sent to Columbia for final approval. It was about three months before she was finally issued a new driver's license.

But that's not the end of the problem. Since her license is tied to her work visa, she must now renew her license every year. If her visa lapses, so does her driver's license.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, foreigners who work in the United States have found it more difficult to maintain the privilege to drive in South Carolina. DMV officials began interpreting the state's Motor Vehicle Customer Service Act more restrictively after a hijacker used a Virginia driver's license to gain access to an airplane, said Randall Dong, a state immigration attorney.

The new restrictions generated hundreds of complaints from legal foreigners, so South Carolina legislators amended state law. The amendment outlined the documents required to prove legal residency for foreign citizens, but also created another logjam by linking the expiration date of a license to a foreign citizen's visa or work document. The license expires if the visa does.

Two years after the amendment, legal foreign workers who wait too late find themselves forced to pay an extra $1,000 fee to the federal government for 30-day fast-track processing of their visa renewals or risk losing their ability to drive to work. Without the fast-track, it can take up to six months for the government to renew a visa, depending on the country of origin.

And since legal foreign workers filling job shortages in professions like nursing are issued short-term visas of a year or two, they may need to start their visa renewal 6 months after they receive it or risk losing their driving privileges.

"I am a resident of this country but not a citizen," Franklin said. "I am here legally, working and paying taxes. I should not have to go through this process."

Susan Brooks, director of international programs and services with MUSC, knows of at least eight workers at MUSC who have paid the $1,000 fee in the past year. The hospital employs roughly 450 international professionals.

"It is not an astounding number, but the fact it is happening is sad," she said. "They (the DMV) are trying to do the best they can to protect South Carolina and the nation from illegal immigrants. But the way the system now works, we have physicians leaving work to go to the DMV when they should be treating patients."

The DMV office in Columbia approves 24,000 driver's license requests from foreign citizens each year, accounting for roughly 2.5 percent of the total 958,700 licenses issued yearly. Each country of origin has different document requirements to prove a citizen's work status.

"There are so many different combinations of documents that can indicate if someone is here in a legal status that the entire system is doomed to failure," Dong said. "It is a waste of state resources to force the DMV workers to attempt a function which they are not qualified to perform. They should not be determining a person's immigration status."

To iron out the kinks in the existing process, DMV has assembled a 30-member task force that began meeting in November that includes state employees, representatives from international companies and community outreach organizations. Representatives from Upstate companies like Fuji, Michelin and BMW are on the task force because of their international work forces.

"The task force was assembled to find a way to reach members of different communities and work out some of these problems," said DMV spokeswoman Beth Parks after hearing the complaints. "We have some pretty strict policies that we are re-evaluating."

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