An immigration enforcement organization says it shouldn't be the role of the city of Los Angeles to help illegal immigrants break federal laws by issuing them special ID cards.
As reported last month by OneNewsnow, the Los Angeles City Council was considering a plan to allow illegal aliens the ability to use their library cards as valid ID for opening bank accounts and accessing other city services. This ID also offers a debit-card function.
Now the city is moving ahead with its so-called "Universal City Services Card," following in the footsteps of San Francisco and New Haven (Connecticut), cities that are already issuing these IDs to individuals who are in the U.S. illegally.
Ira Mehlman is a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). "It should not be the position of the City of Los Angeles to go out and facilitate somebody being in the country illegally and working here illegally because it is a violation of federal law," he tells OneNewsNow.
Mehlman told a CBS radio affiliate in Los Angeles last week that the plan - which he said would "very recklessly [ratify] false identities" - also poses a potential national security threat because those issuing the cards would have no idea who the people are when they come forward.
The FAIR spokesman says it is bad enough that Mexico and other countries have been issuing the "Matricula Consular" ID cards to their citizens living illegally in the U.S., without American cities also getting into what he describes as a bogus ID card business.
"We can't control what the Mexican government does. They can issue whatever documents they want," he remarks. "[But] it's up to us to decide whether we want to honor those documents in this country .... [And] we ought to be able to control what government entities across the United States do."
Mehlman says it is the prerogative of the federal government to issue valid green cards to those immigrants who are in the U.S. legally.