AT LEAST 13 states, 66 banks and 801 police agencies accept them as legitimate documentation. More than 740,000 had been issued at last count, and the number is expected to exceed 1 million by the end of the year. Nevertheless, there is some growing, generalized and so far ill-expressed discomfort about the ease with which matriculas consulares, Mexican consular ID cards, are becoming a standard form of identification in the United States. Critics rightly note that the 48 Mexican consulates scattered across the United States issue these cards to make life easier for those Mexican citizens who are living here illegally. Legal residents can get the cards, of course, but have no real need for them: To establish their identity, all legal residents need are their U.S. driver's licenses, official visas or green cards.

Despite this, the ID cards are gaining wide acceptance. Banks like them because they want to tap into the enormous pool of people who wish to wire money back to Mexico. States like them because they help "regularize" the existence of people who live here but have no other form of documentation. The Mexican government likes them because it hopes the cards will lead to a de facto "amnesty" for Mexicans who live illegally in the United States, as well they may. The administration, it seems, does not object to them: The Treasury Department appears to have given banks tacit approval to accept them.

The cards are, in essence, a form of stealth policymaking. By deciding not to do anything about the estimated 3.5 million Mexicans who live here illegally, the federal government has effectively thrown the issue to the states, abrogating its responsibilities and allowing policy to be made piecemeal. This is irresponsible: Either the current laws should be enforced -- and illegal immigrants deported -- or, as we have argued, the laws should be changed to make it easier for some Mexicans to get temporary visas and work permits.

This is not just an issue of principle, however, it is also one of politics. Recent surveys have shown a growing gap between what the U.S. public thinks about immigration and what U.S. political and business leaders think: Some 60 percent of the public regards the current level of immigration as a "critical threat" to U.S. security, for example. At least in part, this gap is explained by the administration's talking about immigration issues almost exclusively in the context of security threats since Sept. 11, 2001. Vulnerability to terrorism can indeed be one consequence of illegal immigration, but the phenomenon is far from one dimensional. The longer the government fails to develop a coherent policy, or even lead a debate on the subject, the more likely the appearance of makeshift solutions such as the matriculas consulares.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company