Thread: Problem with Matricula Consular Cards Unresolved

http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsec ... leid=11616
October 21, 2006


Problems with Matricula Consular Cards Unresolved


By Jim Kouri

(AXcess News) New York - Many American citizens are confused over the proliferation of Mexican Matricula Consular ID cards that are thought to be bonafide identification documents. They shouldn't feel so bad about their confusion -- it seems the US government, state, and local governments share that confusion.

Several state and local government agencies and financial institutions accept consular identification or CID cards, which are issued by foreign governments to their citizens living abroad. Mexico issued more than 2.2 million Matricula CID cards in 2002-2003 and Guatemala issued approximately 89,000 from mid-2002 to 2003. Critics of CID cards say their acceptance facilitates the unlawful stay within the United States of undocumented aliens and may provide opportunities for terrorists to remain undetected in this country.

Consular identification cards are issued by some governments to help identify their citizens living in a foreign country. The cards do not certify legal residence within a country; thus, cardholders may be either legal or undocumented aliens. CID cards benefit the bearers by enabling them, in some instances, to use this form of identification to obtain driver's licenses, open bank accounts, show proof of identity to police, and gain access to other services.

Mexico and Guatemala each claim they take multiple steps to help ensure that the process for qualifying applicants seeking to obtain CID cards verifies the applicants' identities. After receiving criticism about the reliability of its CID card, Mexico took steps to improve identity verification procedures for its CID card issuance process. However, the Mexican issuance policy still relies on visual, rather than computer-based, verification of some documents used to obtain CID cards, including birth certificates that the Federal Bureau of Investigation says may be fraudulently obtained.

Both Mexico and Guatemala incorporate a variety of security features in their CID cards, such as holographic imagery. However, officials of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement warn that incorporating technical security features into identification documents such as CID cards does not guarantee their authenticity.

Federal agencies hold different and, in some cases, conflicting views on the usage and acceptance of CID cards, and no executive branch guidance is yet available. A Homeland Security Council task force of executive branch agencies is reviewing identification document security but had not as yet issued its findings.

The Department of the Treasury adopted a regulation that, in effect, allows CID card acceptance, while an FBI official has stated that the Mexican CID card, in particular, is not a reliable form of identification and that its acceptance could support false identities. The Department of Homeland Security expressed security concerns as well. The State Department has publicly expressed concerns about the impact restricting CID card use might have on U.S. citizens abroad, for example, if the United States had to issue its own CID cards in an emergency.

Without consistent information on the advisability of accepting CID cards, states and local governments must make their own decisions on whether to accept them, which may create uncertainty on the part of aliens attempting to obtain services with the card, and heighten the risk of these cards being used to establish false identities. Congress' Government Accounting Office recommended to the Homeland Security Department that it direct its task force to develop and implement consistent guidance that would reconcile potential conflicts among federal agencies and complete their efforts to develop policy to enable state and local governments, financial institutions, and others to assess the authenticity of CID cards issued by foreign governments.

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why are there so many red herrings in the water?

Who cares if Jose on the MC card is the same person holding it. It proves nothing, they should not be accepted in the US FOR ANY PURPOSE.

Mexico, Guat, El Sal, Hond, et.al. are smothering us folks...

I'd like to aks all of my elected representatives....

Tell me THE DATE YOU WILL START ARRESTING AND DEPORTING ALL THE ILLEGALS....

I WANT A DATE WHEN IT WILL ALL START, JUST GIVE ME A DATE WHEN YOU WILL START ENFORCING EXISTING LAWS AND BUILD A GODDAMN WALL.

Americans, en masse, are so stupid for putting up with all this crap.

I have lived abroad for 10 years, and no country I have lived in accepts this kind of crap from nobody!!!!!!!!!!

Americans are pushovers.

I have lived in South Korea, they don't put up with this, neither does Laos, nor The United Arab Emirates, where I currently live.

They all basically take the Mexican stance. Illegal? Arrested, deported, no judicial process.

Oh, but America can't learn from the rest of the world, we are supposed to be the leaders, everyone else is supposed to follow us.

When that attitude changes, you will start to see the illegal's numbers go way down.

Don't leave home without it!