City considering municipal ID cards

Maria Garcia

POSTED: 06:22 PM MST Jan 27, 2015 UPDATED: 08:27 PM MST Jan 27, 2015


City considers municipal identification card


EL PASO, Texas -The City of El Paso is exploring a program to provide municipal identification cards to residents. New York, New Haven and some California cities have started to issue municipal IDs.

Supporters say the ID will help those who have trouble getting identifiable documents such as transgender people, the homeless and mainly undocumented immigrants.

Opponents of municipal ID programs in other cities have argues the programs are costly and unnecessary.

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"Take out your wallet, take out any identifying document that you have, put it away for a week - go through your life for one week without any identifying documents and see the challenges that about 40,000 people in El Paso go through," said Jose Manuel Escobedo with the Border Network for Human Rights.

Dozens of members of the border network for human rights showed up to city council with a petition with more than 10-thousand signatures urging city council to start a municipal ID program.

"It's not a simple ID with a card machine, it's one that would require high tech that would be utilized for security type purposes and the same with the card it has to be an identity theft proof card - not something like a library card, it's something more sophisticated," said David Almonte, the Deputy City Manager tasked with researching such a program.

He said the city is exploring how much it would cost to acquire the equipment to produce the cards or if it'd be more efficient to outsource the service.

The city is exploring what the ID card could and should be used for: Just for safety and identification? Or also for city services - like Sun Metro and libraries.

Some cities even enable them to be like pre-paid debit cards. "The more sophisticated, you make an ID card, the more costly it's going to be." said Almonte.

New York City spent about $8 million to get its program started.

"We asked community members would you be willing to pay for it and how much would you be willing to pay and people resoundingly said yes of course, it's worth us paying for it," said Escobedo, pointing out ID applicants would be willing to incur some of the cost.

Without valid photo ID, many immigrants are unable to do things like open bank accounts or enter their children's school or show police who they are.

Supporters say providing them with an ID can increase security. Opponents of such programs say having a municipal ID can encourage illegal immigration.

Almonte said he plans to present his research to the Council in the next few weeks and City Representatives will make a decision.

http://www.kvia.com/news/city-consid...cards/30954004