Thread: New Haven: Will immigrants be scared away from ID card

Will immigrants be scared away from New Haven's city ID cards?

By Betsy Yagla

Southern Connecticut Immigration Reform, the anti-immgrant group of suburbanites leading the crusade against New Haven's Elm City Resident Cards, is demanding the city reveal the names of those who apply for them, and has filed public records requests for the information.

So what will they do with the names once they have them? Well, they're not really sure.

SCtIR organizer Dustin Gold of Northford (that's North Branford, where undocumented immigrants are still living in the shadows) says, "We're just trying to show that if we can get it, other people can get it."

Although the wait at City Hall for the cards is several hours long, there's some evidence the fear campaign is scaring at least a few people.

Eduardo, from Mexico, says he'd like a card but he's hesitant. "Like my friends say, the mayor is trying to help us [by issuing these cards] but it could be good or it could be a bad thing," he says.

At JUNTA for Progressive Action, Eduardo spoke with John Jairo Lugo, director of Unidad Latina en Acción, about his fears regarding the card. By buying a card, Eduardo worries that immigration officials would know where he lives. What could happen to him, he wanted to know, if he filled out an application and handed over his personal information to the city?

The immigrant community was shaken to the core after federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided Fair Haven and arrested 30 undocumented immigrants on June 6, the day after the city ID cards were approved.

Lugo showed Eduardo the card application and explained there is nothing on the card to indicate immigration status or nationality. "[With a Spanish name] You could be Puerto Rican, you could be Mexican-American born here or you could be an immigrant. They don't know," Lugo said.

So Eduardo filled out an application.

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano's office has received at least three public records requests from SCtIR, says Kathleen Foster, assistant corporation counsel. Kica Matos, whose office is handling the cards, and lawyers with the Yale Law Clinic are reviewing the requests.

But the information SCtIR is seeking is just an extremely long list of names, addresses and birthdates. They won't know who's an undocumented immigrant and who's not. And that's the point: The city's new ID cards are supposed to make people safer by allowing them to open bank accounts and prove who they are to police or other officials when necessary, not to spotlight their immigration status.

http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=2243

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Posted under comments:

My family is afraid for the card to. They say no one can see them, but we are not so sure. Posted by rodrigo on 8.1.07 at 16.26