Sheriff accepts Mexican ID card

The Fresno Bee ^ | Tuesday, February 25, 2003, 11:38 AM | By Jim Davis

[Amerigomag]

The Fresno County Sheriff's Department will formally recognize a Mexican national identification card, becoming the largest agency to do so in the central San Joaquin Valley.

Sheriff's deputies will accept the matricula consular cards as a way to identify who a person is and where he or she lives, Sheriff Richard Pierce announced Monday.

"For us in law enforcement, it is obvious that we need to identify people who we come into contact with," Pierce said. "Often, they're victims."

[Amerigomag]

Pierce brushed aside concerns that accepting the cards is tantamount to "looking the other way" on illegal immigrants. The Sheriff's Department does not have the expertise, nor is it charged with the mission, to enforce federal immigration laws, Pierce said.

[sheik yerbouty]

Nor will it make any attempt.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I have a scar on the left cheek of my butt. Could I use that as ID in Fresno?

[Bigg Red]

...nor is it charged with the mission, to enforce federal immigration laws, Pierce said.

Say what?!

[mabelkitty]

If the local sherriff can't enforce immigration laws, then how can my county or state enforce any federal law whatsoever?

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Strange..I dont recall electing Vicente Fox as President of the US

Where is my marticula counsular card?

[Texas_Jarhead]

"Often, they're victims."

while at the same time criminals. of course we can't dare have local LEO helping with that situation.

[Texas_Jarhead]

what really kills me about these matricula cards is that an American citizen w/o a Driver's license cannot open a checking account but an illegal alien w/a foreign issued id card can.

[usurper]

As much as I would like to kick the Sheriff for his stance he really has no choice. Fresno is completely inundated with illegal aliens as is the entire San Juaquin Valley. If his deputies arrested every illegal alien they came across they would not have time for anything else. His deputies could easily arrest 100 a day, but then what? INS is not going to come pick them up so the department would just have to release them.

Personally, if I was a sheriff of one of these cities I would arrest every illegal we came across in the course of our duties who was in any way involved in disrupting the community. I would put them in jail over night and the next day drive a bus to the INS office and drop them off (with the media their of course). This would quite effectively force the feds hands. However if the alien was otherwise a victim of a crime, witness for the government or just some reporting a crime I would simply instruct to deputies not to enquiry as to their legal status.