Posted on 06/26/2006 2:50:54 PM PDT by LNewman
COSTA MESA -- Like many teenagers, Ivan Hernandez wants to buy a car someday. On Sunday, he went to get a wallet-size laminated card that may help.
It's not a driver's license or a credit card. Hernandez, 16, is a Mexican citizen, so he applied to his country's consulate for a matricula consular, a photo ID card much like a U.S. state ID.
To get the card, applicants must show legal documents such as birth certificates or passports, and they give their fingerprints and signature.
Organizers from the Orange County Congregation Community Organization worked with the Laguna Niguel-based Unico Foundation to bring the Mexican consulate to St. Joachim Catholic Church on Sunday to offer the ID cards. Typically, about 300 people receive their cards at each community event, said Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro, who heads Orange County's Mexican Consulate in Santa Ana.
For people who don't have another photo ID or can't get one, the cards are important if they need to they apply for a library card, enroll children in school or identify themselves to the police.
Hernandez, a student at Newport Harbor High School, said the only ID he had was from school, and it isn't accepted at many places.
With the matricula consular, he said, "I'm going to try to go out and get a bank account."
In fact, Bank of America representatives set up a table for people who had received their cards and wanted to open an account.
The bank table was at the end of the line, after a number of steps not unlike procedures at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The consulate's visit was announced at masses, and fliers were distributed. Volunteers were mobilized to arrange the event.
Applicants for the matricula consular were told what documents to bring. After waiting in line outside the church gym to make copies of their documents, people went in and had them checked by consulate staff.
If all the papers were present and valid, applicants paid $27 and waited again while their information was typed into a database to be compared with U.S. and Mexican sources. That was to make sure the information was correct and that people would have only one valid card, said Patrice Mariscal, an organizer with the Unico Foundation.
Then they got their picture taken and a few minutes later, they had a card.
"Right now, everywhere I go, I only pull out my expired [driver's] license," said Jorge Rodriguez, 37, who was waiting to get his photo taken for the ID card.
Rodriguez, a warehouse manager who has lived in Costa Mesa for nearly 16 years, said he doesn't have U.S. citizenship papers, so he can't get a new driver's license.
"Before, you didn't have to prove that you were an American citizen," he said. "There's a lot of things you need to become a legal resident, but right now there's no way for you to get it."
One of the main criticisms of the matricula consular is that people who are not legal residents here can get one, which some people believe legitimizes their illegal status. Congress is still debating legislation that could allow some illegal immigrants to obtain citizenship, but some Republicans have said they will never approve such a proposal.
But Mariscal said it actually helps U.S. government officials -- including police -- when people have the cards.
"I think it's misunderstood," she said. "This is a Mexican document for Mexican people, so we're not doing something wrong; this is just simply saying people are Mexican because they proved they're Mexican."
Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona and Costa Mesa Police Chief John Hensley have said they will accept the matricula consular as identification, so some Costa Mesa residents have been eager to get the cards, Paty Madueno, an organizer with the Orange County Congregation Community Organization, said.
The prospect of being stopped by police is a much bigger concern since the Costa Mesa City Council in December voted to have some officers trained for immigration enforcement. The effort is expected to target felons and gang members, but it has some in the city's Latino community worried anyway.
Organizers of Sunday's event also handed out a survey to find out more about community needs, such as medical services and English classes.
Madueno said later this year they plan to offer people help applying for American citizenship and registering to vote.
For some, getting an ID card is the first step.
"This ID helps the quality of life you're going to get. It's improving the moment you have an ID," Mariscal said.
Another instance of my church, the Roman Catholic one, aiding and abetting lawlessness.
Fine, so go use it in MEXICO.
Seems that illegals will self deport. The story is that a sheriff is putting pressure on the illegals.
Quote from the Article:
“In two, three months, we might go back to Mexico and not come back again,” Alejandra says. “I even have a brother-in-law, his company has told him he has one more month and then there will be no more work for him. So we’re going to have to go.”
For some, getting an ID card is the first step.
"This ID helps the quality of life you're going to get. It's improving the moment you have an ID," Mariscal said.
Sounds like this card is an important first step for illegal immigrants to be able to participate in massive democrat vote fraud.
If the Feds, read "the White House", had no intention of enforcing the law (so much for the oath of Office), then the situation would be... exactly as it is.
ping
Mexico isn't stupid- the matricula consular isn't accepted in Mexico. They know the card is bullcrap.
Of course, so does our administration- but they like having uncounted millions of illegals running freely about the US.
Exactly...
NY Times | 6/7/2005 | EDUARDO PORTER
Gerardo Luviano is looking for somebody to rent his Social Security number. Mr. Luviano, 39, obtained legal residence in the United States almost 20 years ago. But these days, back in Mexico....he is looking for an illegal immigrant in the United States to use it for him - providing a little cash along the way. "My brother in California has a friend who has crops and has people that need one."
Mr. Luviano's pending transaction is merely a blip in a shadowy yet vibrant underground market....undetected by American authorities, operating below the radar in immigrant communities from coast to coast, a secondary trade in identities has emerged straddling both sides of the Mexico-United States border.
Illegal immigrant workers usually earn so little they are owed an income tax refund...........The illegal immigrant "working the number" will usually pay the real owner by sharing the tax refund. Since legal American residents can lose their green cards if they stay outside the country too long, it is useful to have somebody working under their identity north of the border.
"Sometimes the one who is working doesn't mind giving all the refund, he just wants to work," said Fernando Rosales, who runs a shop preparing income taxes in the immigrant-rich enclave of Huntington Park, Calif.
The income tax "refund" is almost certainly generated by Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) fraud, which as a "legal resident" the number renter would qualify to receive, especially if they have have or claim children. The EITC is a "refundable tax credit, which means the IRS will pay it out even if no taxes have been withheld or paid in. So the IRS gives filers who claim the EITC "refunds," even if they have had no taxes withheld.
These number renters can claim up to $4,400 for the 2005 tax year in EITC "refunds," most of the number renters probably claim this maximum refund. The Additional Child Tax Credit is another "refundable" credit which is no doubt routinely claimed by these renters.
For 2005, if the number renter claimed $14,400 in wage income, and three children, between the EITC and the Additional Child Tax Credit the renter would, without having any taxes withheld from wages, receive a tax "refund" of $4,898, plus have $892 credited to Social Security; in addition to the potential of thousands of dollars in California unemployment compensation.
"Sounds like this card is an important first step for illegal immigrants to be able to participate in massive democrat vote fraud."
In Calif. they don't need anything to register to vote and it's illegal here to ask anyone for ID at the polling place.
All they have to do is fill out a post card and mail it and they become registered voters.
Bingo. The matricula card amnesty is this administration's ongoing five-year stealth amnesty. Even if their hideous massive overt amnesty betrayal schemes are thwarted by more patriotic people in the House, this stealth amnesty continues.
That's why Busby stated "you don't have to be legal to vote".
I sincerely hope most Americans are as perceptive as you are on this issue. I've watched California go from being one of the 50 United States to being... whatever it is today.
The shame will be if the rest of the country fails to learn from our experience. There will be nowhere for you to move to to even visit the remains of American culture.
That was our experience in southern California. The Temecula Border Patrol office began enforcing the law and sent an earthquake through the illegal alien community.
It was just a small, short-lived program and it had an electrifying effect. It was a short-lived program because the White House put an end to it as soon as they learned about it. You can't have the Border Patrol being allowed to do internal enforcement, because it might have a major impact on the desire of illegals to keep coming here.
If someone's going to stop the problem it's going to have to be those of you outside of the Southwest. And if you think you have a problem now, I assure you it will get much, much worse.
This administration is going to redeem Benedict Arnold's reputation. At least Arnold was at one time an American hero.
They are not serious. They want to merge America with Mexico and Canada. The first biggest step is inundating us with uneducated, no-English speaking Mexicans, creating a fait accompli
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