My Marietta Daily Journal column today: PLEASE contact your state Rep and state Senator and tell them you want this Mexican ID banned for any and all Georgia government acceptance. Contact info HERE

Marietta Daily Journal

Mexican Matricula Consular ID poses danger to U.S. ( Here )

08/20/2008
By D.A. King
Columnist

“Federal officials have arrested alien smugglers who have had as many as seven different Matricula Consular cards in their possession. … These criminal threats are significant, but it is the terrorist threat presented by the Matricula Consular that is most worrisome.” – Testimony of Steve McCraw, Assistant Director of The Office of Intelligence, FBI, before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims, June 26, 2003

“I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico” – Mexican president Felipe Caldron in a September 2, 2007 address to the Mexican nation.

If you drive by the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta on any given day, it is likely that you could view a line of illegal aliens waiting outside for their turn to buy an ID card called a “Matricula Consular.”

Few readers have heard about the Mexican photo ID. Even fewer know that the Mexican government also has permanent mobile consulates that travel the Southeast – and the nation – dispensing the driver’s license-sized ID cards. Or that the only people who are in need of one of these little “stealth amnesty” cards are illegal aliens.

Anyone who has entered the nation lawfully will have easy access to secure and verifiable U.S. issued ID – like a passport and a valid visa.

The Mexican government fearlessly admits the Matricula Consular ID is issued regardless of immigration status. The respected Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies reports that the objective of the Mexican government with the matriculas “is to achieve quasi-legal status for Mexican illegals in the United States without waiting for action from Washington” and is “a direct challenge to U.S. sovereignty.”

FBI Special Agent McGraw also testified to the Congressional Committee that “the Department of Justice and FBI have concluded the Matricula Consular is not a reliable form of identification, due to the non-existence of any means of verifying the true identity of the card holder.”

“At least one individual of Middle Eastern descent has also been arrested in possession of the Matricula Consular card,” McGraw said.

Alarmingly, Mexican authorities have reported that it issued 963,782 cards in 2004, 830,987 in 2005 and 929,702 in 2006. American law enforcement reports that it is not unusual to arrest someone with multiple matriculas.

About here, the reader may be assuming that with such damning and undeniable evidence, that no matter how many matriculas have been issued that no one in their right mind would accept the ID as valid … right?

Wrong. A Matricula Consular can be used to board an airliner in 21st century America.

In a stunning example of “follow the money”, it was primarily the U.S. banking industry’s lobby that was successful in overcoming the well-founded objections to recognizing the sham ID.

Banks get a commission on money wired out of the U.S. – whether or not it was legally earned. The next time you are in line at your local bank, watch to see how many times the teller takes a Matricula s ID to cash a check.

The mortgage industry wails when anyone suggests that the Matricula should not be accepted as photo ID when making a mortgage loan to illegal aliens.

Try not to think “money laundering.”

Mexico received more than $20 billion sent back home by its citizens last year. But most Mexican banks reject the card – as too insecure.

In a little noted or publicized, but very commendable action, the Cobb County Board of Commissioners recently voted unanimously to create a list of county government accepted ID – and the Matricula Consular is not on that list.

Here, we are lucky that for Cobb government business, we only accept American ID.

“Identification issued by the federal and/or state government requires an acceptable level of proof that the applicant is actually the same person to whom an ID has been issued,” explained Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens.

Unless we want to prove Mexican president Calderon correct, the entire state of Georgia should listen to Olens and make the Matricula Consular illegal for acceptance by any government agency in Georgia.

Georgians who value what remains of American sovereignty and any sense of security should insist the Georgia legislature gets that message.

D.A. King of east Cobb is president of the Cobb-based Dustin Inman Society. He has used two Matricula mock-ups – one bearing the name “Al Quada Gonzalez” – to educate the public on the dangers of Mexican Matricula consular ID.