STANTON, Calif. — Mexican immigrant Jesus Moreno emerged smiling from a California Department of Motor Vehicles office on Friday with official permission to do something he’s been doing here for more than a decade: driving.

The 30-year-old vending-machine installer, who has forked over hundreds of dollars in traffic tickets and car-impound fees as an unlicensed driver, became one of the first to get a permit under a new program to give driver’s licenses to the nation’s largest population of immigrants in the country illegally.

“It’s not that I want to drive,” said Moreno, after leaving a packed DMV office in Orange County. “It’s a necessity.”

Thousands of people crammed into DMV offices and waited in hours-long lines to apply for a license as California became one of 10 states to authorize immigrants in the country illegally to drive.

The DMV expects to field 1.4 million applications in the first three years of a program aimed at boosting road safety and making immigrants’ lives easier. By 3 p.m. Friday, more than 11,000 immigrants had applied, said Jessica Gonzalez, a DMV spokeswoman.