It sounds like the DMV staff you encountered were bigots. I would report them. Get the local media involved. Offer to wait while they call the police since having a fake passport is a crime.
And of course they were bigots. That's the point: there are a lot of bigots in the US.
He thought it wasn't worth the effort to report them, and frankly, I kind of agree. Who wants to spend years fighting in court, maybe having to spend their own hard earned money, and maybe having to deal with the bigots' friends on the police force harassing them? Especially after they just started working a new job?
Report them? To whom? Follow the chain up and you're likely to find a Republican governor and legislature who think the DMV staff were doing exactly what they were supposed to.
If the local media even covered it, I'd expect their angle to be the suspicious brown guy who was prevented from infiltrating our political system by heroic DMV staff.
