Thread: NY City Council Votes Overwhelmingly to Pass Municipal I.D. Bill

City Council Votes Overwhelmingly to Pass Municipal I.D. Bill

By Ross Barkan | 06/26/14 4:00pm

Councilman Danny Dromm at an I.D. card rally. (Photo: Kelly Weill)

The City Council voted overwhelmingly today to approve the creation of municipal identification cards that will allow immigrants living in the country illegally to access crucial city services.

Mayor Bill de Blasio will sign the bill into law, spearheading yet another piece of liberal legislation that would have likely hit roadblocks in the previous administration.

“It is a sound policy, it is humane policy,” Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito told reporters before the vote. “We can serve as a model for the rest of the nation today.”

The bill, pushed forward with Mr. de Blasio’s strong backing, is aimed at providing documentation for the roughly half million undocumented immigrants in the city. Many of these immigrants will be able to show identification that is required for tasks like opening a bank account, seeing a doctor or signing a lease.

Ms. Mark-Viverito said there will be strict residency requirements for the I.D. cards, though she did not immediately provide details about what they would be. The implementation will cost $8.4 million in the next fiscal year, she said, and the city will try to provide incentives for undocumented residents to sign up.

Councilmen Carlos Menchaca and Danny Dromm, two members of the council’s progressive wing, co-sponsored the bill. Mr. Dromm said implementing the I.D. card program had been a dream of his since he first entered the council.

“This is something I dreamed about for the last five years,” Mr. Dromm said, praising Ms. Mark-Viverito for shepherding the bill into law.

Mr. Menchaca said the bill’s passage is just one more example of how the left-leaning council and mayor, who have already passed a new paid sick days law that irked conservatives, are moving the city in a leftward direction as promised.

“This is something that is an example of the kind of work that everyone was asking for on January 1st,” Mr. Menchaca said. “This is a direct manifestation of the mayor and council working together.”

Critics of the cards believe it will allow benefits, which in some cases cost government funds, to people who should not be living in the United States.

The NYPD raised questions about whether the cards could be fraudulently reproduced and at least one Republican, Hudson Valley State Senator Greg Ball, told Mr. Dromm in a television debate that the program would only aid potential terrorists.

Councilman Dan Garodnick, who voted for the bill, expressed concerns about whether banks would actually accept the cards and what exactly will be done to protect against fraud. Mr. Garodnick, a Manhattan Democrat who opposed Ms. Mark-Viverito for speaker, also wished the council had taken more time to consider the bill.

“There are open issues here we are delegating to the mayor to sort out including how to conclusively to prevent fraud,” Mr. Garodnick said. He also wondered whether the cards would just make it easier for the government to target undocumented immigrants.

Republican Councilman Vincent Ignizio, the minority leader, was one of the few “no” votes, lamenting that the “rule-making” process was being turned over to the de Blasio administration. All three Republicans voted against the bill.

“I believe there are legitimate security concerns that have not been adequately addressed,” he said.

Read more athttp://observer.com/2014/06/city-cou...#ixzz35mObavj7

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NYC to issue ID cards to undocumented including thousands of Irish

Casey Egan @irishcentral June 26,2014 01:08 AM

Program viewed as a step towards New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s inaugural promise to “not force any of our residents to live their lives in the shadows.”

The New York City Council is voting today on the creation of a New York Identity Card, which will give undocumented immigrants access to city services. Thousands of Irish are set to benefit.

“This is a step in the right direction, said Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform President Ciaran Staunton.

”It means that basic services such as opening bank accounts and having legitimate ID is now possible.”

Staunton said the next move will be to make driver’s licenses available to undocumented which will require state law.

“Would you prefer driving around knowing people have licenses and are insured rather than not,” he said.

“It is a no-brainer.”

The council is expected to vote in favor. If it passes, the program will go into effect by the end of 2014.

All New Yorkers who have some proof of identification – such as a foreign birth certificate or driver’s license – and proof of residence in one of the city’s five boroughs will be eligible for the municipal ID cards, regardless of their legal status.

There are an estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants living in New York City.

Holding this form of government identification will make basic necessities, such as signing a lease, opening a bank account or seeing a doctor, possible for them.

A number of other cities across the country, including New Haven, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Mercer County in New Jersey have already established similar programs.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito told the AP that the card will “provide a safe and secure identification to all New Yorkers, many of whom have never had them before.

"For too long, many New Yorkers lacked ID for a variety of reasons, but this smart, humane legislation will begin to change that and help many New Yorkers gain access to important city services that were previously out of reach,” she said.

In addition to undocumented immigrants, the municipal ID program is expected to offer relief to the city’s homeless, transgender and elderly residents, for whom obtaining official government identification can be a struggle.

The program is viewed as a step towards New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s inaugural promise to “not force any of our residents to live their lives in the shadows.”

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/pol...-of-Irish.html

New York Is Offering Undocumented Immigrants IDs

By Josh Eidelson July 11, 2014

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Photograph by Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio signs a law on July 10 that paves the way for the city to create municipal ID cards

A bill signed on Thursday by Mayor Bill de Blasio will make New York the country’s largest city to offer a municipal ID card to all residents—including undocumented immigrants. The cards will make carriers eligible to use city services, like lending libraries, but the city is negotiating with banks to help holders access financial services, too.

Over the past eight years, as immigration reform has stalled repeatedly in Congress, similar ID programs have passed in several cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. New York’s city council passed its bill last month, after House Republicans declared the latest reform effort dead. Some of the same groups behind the New York City bill are backing a more ambitious effort to pass a statewide bill under which undocumented immigrants could be declared citizens of New York State—an effort that may be quixotic, but one that comes just as President Obama has signaled he plans to make greater use of his authority to make immigration changes without Congress at a federal level.

There’s a lot Obama could legally do on his own—including granting work authorization to the majority of the country’s undocumented immigrants—but the potential political backlash appears likely to hold him back. “All of the lawyers that we’ve talked to say, you know, the political constraints are going to kick in before the legal constraints,” says Frank Sharry, who directs the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice.

STORY: On Immigration, Obama Goes It Alone

In New York, oddly, one of the loudest voices opposing the new ID card was the New York Civil Liberties Union, which says the city’s plan to store applicants’ application documents for up to two years in order to facilitate fraud investigations opens up concerns about privacy, and possible misuse of the database by federal immigration authorities. “We are disappointed that the city is inviting New Yorkers to gamble with the stakes as high as prosecution or even deportation,” the NYCLU’s advocacy director, Johanna Miller, said in a statement.

STORY: New York State Mulls Citizenship for Undocumented Workers

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...immigrants-ids