Thread: IDs help prove Mexicans' identities

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IDs help prove Mexicans' identities
By GILLIAN GAYNAIR, The Virginian-Pilot
© September 24, 2006


VIRGINIA BEACH - Rodolfo Garcia sat outside the gymnasium at St. Gregory Church on Saturday, manila envelope in hand, waiting his turn.

The envelope held his birth certificate, a Mexican voter registration card, his high school diploma and a utility bill from where he lives in Norfolk.

By day's end, those documents would help give the 23-year-old something he hadn't had before: proof of who he is.

The consul general of Mexico and his staff were in Virginia Beach Saturday - and will be here today, too - to provide Mexican citizens such as Garcia with up-to-date passports and "matricula consular" cards.


Introduced in 1871, the matricula is a photo ID that allows the Mexican government to track its citizens and provides citizens a way to identify themselves. In recent years, the card's features and its use have evolved: It was once a bulky cardboard document with typed information. Today, it's the size of a credit card and includes 17 hidden and visible security features, including a biometric bar code, holograms and optical character recognition.

The matricula is used primarily by undocumented Mexicans, although naturalized citizens and legal residents may carry it, too.

"This helps us cut the vicious circle of people coming here without an identity," Enrique Escorza, consul general of Mexico in Washington, said Saturday. "We restore their identity; we're not restoring their legal status."

Critics of the matricula say materials required to obtain it, such as a birth certificate, can be easily forged; that the card shields criminals; and that it ultimately poses a threat to national security.

"I just think it's against the interest of the United States of America to accept another country's identification as if it were equal to our own," said Marti Dinerstein, president of Immigration Matters, a New York public policy firm.

The matricula is honored as a valid form of identification for Mexican citizens to open accounts in 150 to 200 banks nationwide, said James Ballentine, director of community and economic development for the American Bankers Association in Washington.

Many who carry matriculas "in a sense were 'mattress depositors'" and targets for robbery, he said last week. Banks now are trying to "cultivate a growing marketplace that could manifest itself into a larger marketplace later."

None of it sits well with John Keeley.

The Mexican government wants banks to accept matr?culas "and all levels of government to acknowledge it as a legitimate ID card," said Keeley, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative Washington research group. "It seems to me a brazen infringement on American sovereignty."

Some law enforcement and city agencies across the country recognize the card. Locally, the Virginia Beach Police Department received information on matr?culas earlier this year as well as devices to help officers determine the cards' authenticity, said Beatriz Amberman, executive director of the Hispanic Community Dialogue and vice chair of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's Virginia Latino Advisory Board.

This was the fourth visit from the Mexican consulate that Amberman had organized.

Escorza expec ted that some 700 people would receive new cards, passports or both this weekend. The matricula costs $27 and is valid for five years.

Most people who came for the service hadn't owned a card; others needed to update their information, Escorza said.

To obtain a matricula, they had to present a birth certificate, a second form of Mexican identification and proof that they live in Hampton Roads, such as a utility bill.

For the past three years, Escorza said Mexico has required that people have a new, government- issued copy of their birth certificate - which includes security features such as holograms - as well as the original document, to qualify for a matr?cula.

On Saturday, each applicant's information, including birthplace, an emergency contact number and fingerprint, was validated and immediately entered into a central database in Mexico. The system also checked the country's criminal records. Those with a record would have their documents held and would not receive a matricula, Escorza said.

While Escorza and his team issued passports and matr?culas, others were at work, too, in the gymnasium.

Immigration lawyers, the Health Department and Liberty Tax Service were among those who provided information in Spanish.

Bank of America was there, too, helping people - new matricula cards in hand - to open accounts.


Reach Gillian Gaynair at (757) 222-3895 or gillian.gaynair@pilotonline.com.

"Introduced in 1871, the matricula is a photo ID that allows the Mexican government to track its citizens and provides citizens a way to identify themselves. In recent years, the card's features and its use have evolved: It was once a bulky cardboard document with typed information. Today, it's the size of a credit card and includes 17 hidden and visible security features, including a biometric bar code, holograms and optical character recognition. "

Isn't it idiotic that we don't have something like this for voter registration?

Yeah, the Feds are talking about putting one together for FEDERAL elections, but it pisses me off we don't have one for citizens and Mexico has one that Mexicans use in the US, pisses me off.

I say, get these Mexican Consular offices out off the US. It's so obvious the Mexican Government is behind aiding and abetting all these illegals.

If he's here illegally, why is all that crap necessary? And if he's already demonstrated a propensity to flagrantly violate US law, what makes us believe he didn't steal all that crap. Nope. Not buyin' it.

I used to work across the street from a Mexican consular office in
Raleigh. I could look out the window & see illegals going in & out all day. There's no greater sign NC is going to the dogs & people don't care.

Is'nt that nice to see Bank of Amerian right there to help them open accounts. Greedy scoundrels!! They sponsor La Raza too.

The next Congress and administration better put an end to this nonsense!