Posted on 02/11/2003 12:48:57 PM PST by madfly
WASHINGTON -- After pushing for immigration reforms for most of his time in Congress, Rep. Elton Gallegly said he was floored when he heard about a policy the Board of Supervisors passed in his home county.
Now he plans to counter its action from Washington.
In October, Ventura County supervisors voted unanimously to recognize and encourage the use of identification cards, called matricula consular, issued by the Mexican government. Mexican consular offices, including the office in Oxnard, are distributing the cards to Mexicans living in the county, whether legally or illegally.
"I recently asked one of the supervisors, 'What are you doing?' " said Gallegly, a Republican from Simi Valley. The matricula consular cards, he added, are nothing more than a "quasi, mini-amnesty program."
He says he will introduce legislation this month directing that "no foreign-issued identification other than a passport would be acknowledged by the federal government as valid identification."
The bill would not affect the county supervisors' decision or private companies' but would prevent federal enforcement agencies, such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI, from accepting them.
Gallegly says legal immigrants have other identification: passports, green cards, visas or legal driver licenses.
"Please tell me who would need this form of documentation other than those who were illegally in the country or a criminal seeking another form of identification or a terrorist," he said.
Fernando Gamboa, consul at Mexico's Oxnard office, says it's true that Mexicans illegally working or living in the United States benefit most from the cards, but he said it's a way for the Mexican government to "know how many people are here."
"Of course it's much better for people (to be in the country) legally," he said, "but that is an ideal world, a goal. There are a lot of people who have nothing, no ID.
"And as representatives of the Mexican government, the only thing we're doing is giving a proper ID to the Mexican citizens, as simple as that."
Gamboa and Supervisor John Flynn, who pushed for countywide acceptance of the card, said the IDs cannot be used to accept services such as Medi-Cal, Medicare, or food stamps. They can only be used as proof of identification needed to obtain library cards, bank accounts or access to bars.
Mexico has issued the cards since the 1870s, Gamboa added, but only after Sept. 11, 2001, did the Mexican government create more secure, tamper-proof cards.
Each card, which is good for five years, features the green, white and red stripes of the Mexican flag and includes the person's name, place and date of birth, current residence, date of issuance, consular office at which the card was given and the expiration date.
The Mexican government issued more than 1 million last year, including several thousand in Ventura County.
Cities and communities in 32 states recognize the cards as valid identification, as do 74 banks, such as Bank of America, U.S. Bank and First Bank of America, and 800 police agencies, according to the Mexican embassy in Washington.
Gamboa said the ID cards allow Mexicans to open bank accounts in the United States, which could help prevent the thefts of cash among immigrants that have become so common.
Family members of legal immigrants also benefit from the cards, he said.
"Perhaps the husband has the green card but the wife and kids have not, and if we give the wife and children a matricula consular, they may use it to go to the library and other different tasks in the common day," Gamboa said.
However, Gallegly and a growing movement among immigration reform groups call the program a way to legitimize illegal immigrants.
Besides the bill Gallegly plans, Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican and one of the most outspoken immigration reform advocates in Congress, is pushing similar legislation that prevents federal agencies from recognizing the cards and urges state governments to follow suit.
Groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington and the Omaha, Neb.-based ProjectUSA have launched campaigns against the matricula consular, calling them security risks.
The Mexican government, however, is not backing down. Consuls across the country continue lobbying town, city and state governments to get behind the ID cards.
Arizona's Legislature, for example, still is embroiled in the debate.
Gallegly said he realizes immigration remains a sensitive issue between the United States and its neighbor to the south.
"The reason the Mexican government is going to do everything possible to keep these cards is because billions of dollars go from people illegally in the country back to the motherland," he said.
He added it should not be a friction point because the United States is only trying to enforce its own laws.
Flynn, however, said it's too late for that because an estimated 8 million to 12 million Mexicans already are living in the United States.
Those who are here should be counted, he said.
"It's the Congress that, through weak legislation and weak enforcement, has allowed people to illegally enter the country in the first place," Flynn said.
He suggested that Gallegly not introduce the bill.
"There are so many important things going on in the world today," he said. "So why would he take a card away from an elderly person of Mexican extraction who's not a citizen? Why would he take that away from a poor person who is walking down the sidewalk?
"It just doesn't make any sense."
Hey, Flynn, you played the wrong card from the Dem deck here. On immigration, you're supposed to play the Racist card - you play the Throw Granny In A Snowbank card on Social Security and Medicare issues.
This is California, things stopped making sense years ago.
Bulls-eye! Dems have become so predictable in their responses that you pretty much know what they're going to say even before they open their mouths. They won't debate the facts or merits of an issue. Instead, they resort to either calling their opponents names like "mean-spirited" or "racist", or they try to play to people's emotions by saying things like "Oh, we must have pity for the children" (or the elderly, or the poor, or the illegal aliens, etc.). Very predictable indeed.
I guess you folks of voting age down in Ventura county know what to do with this clown...
This sentence gets me. Why do we want their thieves in our country? Illegally no less. These people are so full of it that I can smell it from here!
We've been trying to do it for years. Name recognition, not policies and beliefs, is the determining factor in local elections. Only political junkies keep up on how these people actually vote on issues.
But Flynn's right when he says: "It's the Congress that, through weak legislation and weak enforcement, has allowed people to illegally enter the country in the first place." Remember, too, there's a very large number of (illegal) Mexican votes in Ventura County for enterprising politicians like Flynn to pander to.
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