House OKs Mexican ID ban

March 31, 2011

By Ray Gronberg
Durham Herald Sun


DURHAM -- N.C. House members voted 66-50 Wednesday to pass and send to the state Senate a bill that would bar local and state officials from accepting the Mexican government's matricula consular and documents like it as valid ID.

The margin was short of what supporters would need to muster to override a gubernatorial veto, should one be forthcoming if the bill clears the Senate.

Republicans lined up solidly in favor, but House Democrats were against it 50-1. A veto override takes three-fifths of the members present and voting, 72 votes in the House if all 120 members participate. The GOP in a full chamber is four votes short of holding a veto-proof majority.

Wednesday's vote came four months after Durham's City Council voted unanimously to endorse the city Police Department's practice of accepting the matricula. The bill's wording would explicitly override that decision.

Supporters of the anti-matricula bill discounted assurances from Mexican diplomats that the ID, issued to Mexicans living abroad, is reliable proof of the bearer's identity.

One of the bill's chief sponsors, N.C. Rep. Mike Hager, R-Rutherford, told fellow legislators that the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice regard the document as being "highly susceptible to fraud."

"Who do you believe is protecting American's values, the Mexican consulate … or the FBI, the Justice Department or the TSA?" Hager said, including the federal Transportation Security Administration in the list of agencies legislators should look to for guidance.

Hager's mention of the FBI alluded to testimony a mid-ranking agency official gave to Congress in 2003.

The card is nonetheless accepted by a variety of government agencies in this country, including the Internal Revenue Service, Mexico's consul general for the Carolinas, Carlos Flores-Vizcarra, told members of a House committee earlier this month.

Opposition to the matricula is a major cause for groups who say they oppose illegal immigration, such as Americans for Legal Immigration, based in Raleigh. They contend that the card merely serves to legitimize illegal immigrants.

Democrats, however, said law-enforcement groups have been conspicuously silent about the bill. That, to them, lent credence to the idea that accepting it isn't really a problem.

"We ought to be hearing it from the horse's mouth, or [GOP legislators] ought to be giving us the documents they say support their arguments -- neither of which has occurred," said N.C. Rep. Bill Faison, D-Orange. "If all those folks show up and say this is a problem that needs to be addressed and this is a correct solution for it, I'll take the next step and vote for [the bill]."

Faison tried to have the bill sent back to committee, but Republicans blocked that on a party-line decision. Come the final vote, the only legislator to cross the aisle was N.C. Rep. Tim Spear, D-Washington, who voted for passage.

Two Republicans, N.C. Reps. Jeff Barnhart, R-Cabarrus, and Danny McComas, R-New Hanover, switched positions on Wednesday. They'd voted against the bill in a preliminary ballot the day before.

That got them a denunciation from Americans for Legal Immigration, which on its website branded the pair "traitor Republicans." The group also lumped Spear in with Democrats it said had voted to stand "with illegal alien invaders."

One of the bill's opponents, N.C. Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, blasted the group during Wednesday's floor debate. He termed its criticism of Barnhart and McComas "despicable" and "an attack from the very margins of society."

Glazier also denounced the bill in no uncertain terms, calling it an "ugly, ugly" piece of legislation.

All Durham and Orange county House members -- all Democrats -- voted against the bill.

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Immigrant ID bill draws fiery rebuttal
March 31, 2011
Raleigh News and Observer

wo hot-button bills cleared the state House of Representatives as expected Wednesday, but not without impassioned, last-ditch efforts to stop them.

The proposal to remove a Mexican consulate document as an acceptable form of identification passed 66-50 and is headed to the Senate. But as the opposition went down in flames, Rep. Rick Glazier, a Democrat from Fayetteville, denounced the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC for its "deceitful and hurtful and prejudicial comments."

ALIPAC, which supports the bill, issued a statement praising the House for its vote Tuesday, saying it "set a national precedent." It went on to criticize the "two traitor" Republicans who voted with Democrats to oppose the bill: Rep. Daniel McComas of Wilmington and Rep. Jeff Barnhart of Concord. It also called Barnhart a "sellout."

"The First Amendment is not a suicide pact," Glazier said. "It does not require that we stand silent ... to those that attack us at the margins of society.

"Whether on the merits, the honor of our colleagues, preservation of the institution, I hope some of us change our vote today," he said. "It's an ugly, ugly bill."

Similarly, the bill allowing concealed handguns in restaurants where alcohol is served and in parks by people with permits passed 74-42, and goes to the Senate. Wake County Democrats Rep. Deborah Ross and Rep. Darren Jackson argued against the bill to the end.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/03/31/ ... fiery.html