Thread: Mexican ID Card Helps Immigrants in U.S.

http://www.abqjournal.com/border2005/40 ... -01-05.htm

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Mexican ID Card Helps Immigrants in U.S.

By Andrew Webb
Journal Staff Writer

Every week or so, Mari Monge brings an immigrant to the Mexican Consulate, near Downtown Albuquerque.

It is the only place in the state where, for $35, one can apply for access to many of the services U.S. citizens enjoy every day.

Monge, a home health care provider in Roswell, said she does it because she already knows the ropes of the system, and why the matricula consular identification card is so important to immigrants, whether legal or illegal.

"They need it to get their driver's license, to pay their bills, to get a place to stay," Monge said during a recent visit to the Consulate with a companion who was seeking a card.

The matricula consular card is a Mexican identification card available to anyone with a Mexican birth certificate, proof of address and some government-issued photo identification. Officially, it is designed to help Mexican citizens prove their identity.

But, increasingly, the green, red and white card has become a passport to the modern U.S. economyâ€â€

Solana says half the applicants provide as photo identification so-called "green cards," permits to live and work in the U.S. that are usually given out by lottery selection.

If you have a valid green card, why would you need that worthless, Monopoly money matricular id card?

Previously, he says, deputies arresting Mexican immigrants frequently had "absolutely nothing" to go on for positive identification.

I think you mean ILLEGAL immigrants. Legal immigrants would have valid id.

Solana's official statement is, "I don't know any illegal immigrants."

I don't think this idiot knows what day of the week it is.

Ruben Ponce-Gonzalez, from Juchipila, Zacatecas, Mexico, said he had been in the U.S. for about six months.

Legally???