Mexican ID Card Gains Status, and Long Lines of Applicants

The matricula consular, an identification card the Mexican government has given expatriates for more than a century, has recently become highly sought after, with lines of applicants wrapping around city blocks each workday at Mexican consulates in Santa Ana, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

The soaring demand comes as the photo ID card gains standing similar to that of the California Identification Card with some police departments, banks and businesses in California and the Southwest.

From the city of Orange to San Francisco, Albuquerque to Austin, authorities began accepting them last November. Some airlines now recognize them for flights within the United States. Other businesses are beginning to use them for establishing store layaway plans.

Until last fall, the Mexican Consulate in Santa Ana got 1,800 requests a month for the card, which costs $29 and is good for five years. Now, it handles 4,000 applications monthly. The consulate in Los Angeles used to process 3,800 a month. Since November, that number has jumped to 10,000.

And dozens of financial institutions courting Mexican customers--the Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank, among them--are accepting the cards as legal identification for opening bank accounts.

“Eventually, this will be accepted throughout the United States,” predicted Miguel Angel Isidro, head of the Mexican Consulate in Santa Ana.

Matriculas consulares first were issued by Mexican consulates in the 1870s to keep track of Mexicans living abroad. They later became a pseudo passport accepted by Mexican authorities as immigrants to the United States wanted to head back across the border.

After Sept. 11, when proving one’s identity became vital in a security-conscious society, the matricula has become an alternative for millions of undocumented workers not eligible for a green card or Social Security card, who therefore could not get even a driver’s license or state-issued ID card.

People without identification have far greater difficulty negotiating everyday transactions such as renting videos or cashing checks. And those stopped for routine traffic violations are more likely to be deported because their immigration status will be investigated.

Fear of deportation prompts people such as Angelica Mesa, a 20-year-old waitress who has lived half her life in Fullerton, to join dozens of others lining up outside the consulate in Santa Ana on a recent day.

Mesa said she doesn’t want to end up like her cousin, who was stopped by Anaheim police two weeks ago for speeding. He had no driver’s license and spent four days in jail before immigration authorities determined he was undocumented. He was then sent back to Mexico on an Immigration and Naturalization Service bus.

“It made me really scared,” said Mesa, who graduated from Fullerton High School two years ago. “Now I need to have something more than my high school ID.”

Amid a sea of baby strollers and parents bundled in sweaters to ward off the morning chill, Miguel Angel Perez agreed. He and his wife were waiting because she has no identification, and he fears she could be swept off the street one day.

“After Sept. 11, anything is really possible,” said Perez, a 30-year-old construction worker. “This is not an environment where you want to be without identification. You could be deported or taken to jail. These are tough times.”

Some Critics Call ID Cards Unfair

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry has encouraged its 48 consulates in the United States to promote acceptance of the matricula, according to Isidro and officials at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Isidro said the Mexican government would prefer that California stop requiring Social Security numbers to get a driver’s license. In the absence of that, matriculas are the best alternative, he said.

“What’s important to us is that Mexicans are treated like everyone else because they have identification,” said Agustin Pradillo, spokesman for the Mexican consul in Los Angeles.

But anti-immigrant activists call the Mexican ID cards an unfair privilege to immigrants who should not be in the United States at all.

Groups such as the American Patrol and California Coalition for Immigration Reform in Huntington Beach have urged their supporters to “strongly oppose this treachery.” Last month, they held what they called defense of the homeland rallies before the Anaheim City Council to protest the police chief’s decision to recognize the Mexican ID cards.

Even among advocates for immigrants rights, the ID cards are a source of debate.

Nativo Lopez, national co-director of the immigrant advocacy organization Hermandad Mexicana, advises immigrants not to get matriculas.

“While we view it as a well-meaning effort by the Mexican government, the effect is disastrous for a person who is undocumented,” Lopez said. “That’s immediate evidence that [the immigrant] has no legal status. We have proposed that the resolution is not the matricula but a [driver’s] license.”

Many who wait in line for hours to get a matricula also would prefer a driver’s license. A bill that would have allowed immigrants applying for residency to get a California driver’s license passed the Legislature but died after Gov. Gray Davis didn’t sign it into law.

The matricula is the next best thing for those who believe proof of identity will prevent their deportation.

Monico Moreno, 48, has been carrying a plastic-covered miniature birth certificate around most of his life. It shows he was born in San Antonio, Texas. He brought his niece, a 22-year-old native of Mexico City who has lived in the United States eight years, to the Santa Ana consulate so she could apply for a matricula.

“You just don’t know anymore what could happen if you have no ID,” said Moreno. “We’re here because we are at war, but we should not be at war with people who are hard-working in this country.”