(this was part of a point/counterpoint by Barbara Winick)

HOUSE OF CARDS

KEY TO WIDER U.S. SOCIETY, CONSULAR ID CARDS CALLED HUMANE BY SOME WHILE OTHERS DECRY THE DEVICE

Saturday, November 23, 2002

Apologists for illegal immigration love the matricula consular, a document issued by Mexican consulates to Mexican nationals who are living abroad and don't have identification documents. But that doesn't explain why elected officials in dozens of cities and counties across the United States -- including Denver -- have decided to accept them as legal proof of identity. They are sworn to uphold the law, not to subvert it for their own convenience, and they certainly have no obligation to make life easier for people who have chosen to live outside the law.

We must first dispose of the canard that opponents of illegal immigration are, overtly or covertly, racists. The focus on Mexican nationals is a matter of numbers, not of ethnicity. Some 8 million to 9 million people are in the United States illegally, and roughly half of them are from Mexico. That's the largest part of the problem; it should receive the largest share of attention. But the principles apply to the remaining half as well.

And besides, even if the apologists are right that some people worry about Mexicans or Chinese who wouldn't worry about an equal number of Irish or Italians (unwelcome a century ago) accusing them of base motives does not refute the argument they make, which is that illegal activity should not be condoned or facilitated.

Some advocates of the matricula consular and other ways of making life easier for illegal immigrants say it's unfair for the children and grandchildren of immigrants to oppose immigration. But they are failing to distinguish legal from illegal immigration -- and sometimes, it seems, rejecting even the possibility that many people believe the distinction is genuinely important.

A century ago, the population of the United States was 76 million, and legal immigration was virtually unrestricted. Now it is 281 million, and if immigration continues at its current rates, the population will reach 550 million by 2050. Times change. In 1900 a farmer could burn the prairie, drain the wetlands, and shoot whooping cranes out of the sky for Christmas dinner. Now he can't.

We don't allow people to flout environmental law whenever it suits them; we shouldn't allow people to flout immigration law. The matricula consular is principally of use to people who aren't entitled to live or work in the United States; people who are entitled have the documents to prove it.

The arguments for legitimizing this form of ID boil down to saying, ``these people are here anyway, we have to accommodate them somehow.''

That assertion has several parts, none of which holds up on examination.

Illegal immigrants come here only to work? That's not an exoneration, it's an indictment. Not only do they want to be present in the United States illegally, but they fully intend to support themselves here by working illegally as well.

To the extent it's true however, the corollary is that if they couldn't work, they wouldn't come.

I'm not sure, by the way, that supporters of the matricula consular have thought through how much more difficult it will be to work illegally in the United States once employers catch on. Getting a fake Social Security card might be easy, but getting one whose number matches the birthdate on the consular card will be much harder. If the 25-year-old man applying for a job presents a Social Security number belonging to an 80-year-old woman in Buffalo, he shouldn't be hired. That's easy for employers to check.

Illegal immigrants take only jobs Americans won't do? That's patently untrue. The foreign-born population (legal and illegal) is concentrated in a handful of states, but the jobs get done everywhere.

Ultimately the matricula consular is intended to make life easier for people who are breaking the law. Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, when he presented his plan for the city to accept the ID for city services, called it a ``goodwill gesture'' and urged other metro-area cities to do the same. Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina explained that she had sponsored a plan recognizing the card because after Sept. 11, ``it is very difficult -- if not impossible -- to carry on with the day-to-day activities of life without identification.''

You know what? It's supposed to be difficult for people to live here if they have no right to be here, wherever they come from. Public officials shouldn't be trying to make it easier.