FBI Criticizes Mexican Consular I.D. Cards
The cards, held by more than a million immigrants in California and elsewhere, are prone to fraudulent use, the agency tells Congress.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar,
Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON - The Mexican identification cards that have eased access to financial and local government services for more than 1 million immigrants in the United States are prone to fraud and misuse by criminals and possibly terrorists, the FBI told a congressional panel Thursday.

"The Department of Justice and the FBI have concluded that the matricula consular is not a reliable form of identification," said Steven McCraw, assistant director of the FBI's intelligence office. "There are major criminal threats posed by the cards and (a) potential terrorist threat." Resembling a driver's license and displaying the bearer's address in the United States, the cards are issued by Mexican consulates to Mexican citizens, whether or not they are legally in this country.

The cards are accepted as identification by more than 70 U.S. banks, 800 police departments and numerous local governments.

McCraw's testimony brought into the open a debate within the Bush administration. Several agencies are struggling to craft a government-wide policy on consular IDs, even as a half-dozen other countries are considering issuing similar cards for their citizens in the United States.

Currently, consular IDs are not valid for admittance to federal buildings, but the Transportation Security Administration accepts them for air travelers.

Within the administration, the State and Treasury departments have taken a tolerant view, while the FBI is raising strong concerns, and Homeland Security has staked out a middle ground.

Many local law-enforcement agencies have embraced the cards, saying acceptance has made it easier to police immigrant communities and has made low-income workers less vulnerable to crime by allowing them to open bank accounts instead of keeping their savings in cash.

Proponents of reducing immigration have criticized the matriculas as providing an incentive for illegal migration. "The fact that so many localities have made the decision to accept consular cards for domestic identification purposes, without guidance from the federal government, is a source of concern," said Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee. "No background checks are run. No investigation is undertaken to assess the possible risk that an alien poses to the American people."

Mexican Embassy spokesman Miguel Monterrubio said his government, which has encouraged acceptance of the cards, wants to cooperate with U.S. authorities to resolve any specific concerns about them.

"We have been working hard to improve the process of security under which we give out these consular IDs, precisely with the intention of avoiding forgery," Monterrubio said.

McCraw said extensive research by the FBI determined that the Mexican IDs can be fraudulently obtained by presenting false documents at a Mexican consulate, or can be forged. "Even the newest version can be easily replicated, despite its security features," McCraw said.

The Mexican government has no central database that can be used to track recipients of the cards, he added. Monterrubio said such a database is under construction.

Criminals can use the cards to facilitate money laundering and alien smuggling, McCraw said. One alien smuggler was arrested with seven of the IDs, each with his picture and a different name.

The apprehension of an Iranian man trying to cross the border from Mexico earlier this year with a consular ID identifying him as a citizen of Mexico exposed another vulnerability, McCraw added.

There was no indication that the man was a terrorist, McCraw said, but "the ability of foreign nationals to use the matricula consular to create a fictitious identity in the United States provides an opportunity for terrorists." They could "move freely within the United States without triggering name-based watch lists that are disseminated to local officials."

Mexican authorities say they are constantly on the lookout for non-Mexicans trying to obtain the consular IDs. "We are a very homogeneous country," said Edgardo Flores Rivas, consul general in Washington. "It would be very difficult for someone to trick us."

McCraw said the Iranian had obtained the Mexican ID with the help of a girlfriend in the United States.

McCraw conceded that state driver's licenses, Social Security cards, and other U.S.-issued documents can also be forged. And as a former Texas state trooper, he said, he can sympathize with local law enforcement officials who endorse acceptance of the IDs. Some identification "is always better than nothing," he said.

A Hispanic civil rights organization described the real issue as the lack of a federal policy to grant official status to more than 7 million illegal immigrants, most of them workers. "We have a system that is clearly broken, and the federal government has done nothing, so state and local government have to come up with solutions," said Michele Waslin, a policy analyst with the National Council of La Raza.

Original link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-062603mexid_lat.story