ID card seen as ticket to a brighter future

COSTA MESA ? Like many teenagers, Ivan Hernandez wants to buy a car someday. On Sunday, he went to get a wallet-size laminated card that may help.

It’s not a driver’s license or a credit card. Hernandez, 16, is a Mexican citizen, so he applied to his country’s consulate for a matricula consular, a photo ID card much like a U.S. state ID.

To get the card, applicants must show legal documents such as birth certificates or passports, and they give their fingerprints and signature.

Organizers from the Orange County Congregation Community Organization worked with the Laguna Niguel-based Unico Foundation to bring the Mexican consulate to St. Joachim Catholic Church on Sunday to offer the ID cards. Typically, about 300 people receive their cards at each community event, said Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro, who heads Orange County’s Mexican Consulate in Santa Ana.

For people who don’t have another photo ID or can’t get one, the cards are important if they need to they apply for a library card, enroll children in school or identify themselves to the police.

Hernandez, a student at Newport Harbor High School, said the only ID he had was from school, and it isn’t accepted at many places.

With the matricula consular, he said, “I’m going to try to go out and get a bank account.”

In fact, Bank of America representatives set up a table for people who had received their cards and wanted to open an account.

The bank table was at the end of the line, after a number of steps not unlike procedures at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The consulate’s visit was announced at masses, and fliers were distributed. Volunteers were mobilized to arrange the event.

Applicants for the matricula consular were told what documents to bring. After waiting in line outside the church gym to make copies of their documents, people went in and had them checked by consulate staff.

If all the papers were present and valid, applicants paid $27 and waited again while their information was typed into a database to be compared with U.S. and Mexican sources. That was to make sure the information was correct and that people would have only one valid card, said Patrice Mariscal, an organizer with the Unico Foundation.

Then they got their picture taken and a few minutes later, they had a card.

“Right now, everywhere I go, I only pull out my expired [driver’s] license,” said Jorge Rodriguez, 37, who was waiting to get his photo taken for the ID card.

Rodriguez, a warehouse manager who has lived in Costa Mesa for nearly 16 years, said he doesn’t have U.S. citizenship papers, so he can’t get a new driver’s license.

“Before, you didn’t have to prove that you were an American citizen,” he said. “There’s a lot of things you need to become a legal resident, but right now there’s no way for you to get it.”

One of the main criticisms of the matricula consular is that people who are not legal residents here can get one, which some people believe legitimizes their illegal status. Congress is still debating legislation that could allow some illegal immigrants to obtain citizenship, but some Republicans have said they will never approve such a proposal.

But Mariscal said it actually helps U.S. government officials ? including police ? when people have the cards.

“I think it’s misunderstood,” she said. “This is a Mexican document for Mexican people, so we’re not doing something wrong; this is just simply saying people are Mexican because they proved they’re Mexican.”

Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona and Costa Mesa Police Chief John Hensley have said they will accept the matricula consular as identification, so some Costa Mesa residents have been eager to get the cards, Paty Madueno, an organizer with the Orange County Congregation Community Organization, said.

The prospect of being stopped by police is a much bigger concern since the Costa Mesa City Council in December voted to have some officers trained for immigration enforcement. The effort is expected to target felons and gang members, but it has some in the city’s Latino community worried anyway.

Organizers of Sunday’s event also handed out a survey to find out more about community needs, such as medical services and English classes.

Madueno said later this year they plan to offer people help applying for American citizenship and registering to vote.

For some, getting an ID card is the first step.

“This ID helps the quality of life you’re going to get. It’s improving the moment you have an ID,” Mariscal said.CHRISTOPHER WAGNER / DAILY PILOTdpt.26-consulate-2-CPhotoInfoCP1SBD5220060626j1fpf7ncCHRISTOPHER WAGNER / DAILY PILOT(LA)Eliseo Lopes Andrez, of Costa Mesa, checks over his information before receiving his identification card at St. Joachim Church in Costa Mesa on Sunday.dpt.26-consulate-1-CPhotoInfoCP1SBFC320060626j1fpeonc(LA)Ana Jimenez, of Costa Mesa, gets her photo taken for her ID card at St. Joachim Church in Costa Mesa on Sunday.