San Francisco Illegal Alien ID Card has Cost $400 Each!

So far, the San Francisco Illegal Alien 'Resident' card has cost the City of San Francisco about $850,000. Having issued around 2,135 cards, the cost comes out to just under $400 each.

Sure, they had to lay out money to purchase expensive machinery for making the cards which is distorting the numbers above as they have yet to issue their targeted amount of cards and the cost would be spread out over all the cards. The City is planning on issuing about 15,000 cards. That brings the estimated cost per card down to around $57 each.

Small problem, in that at most, the city is charging only $15 for adults.

Children, seniors and low income adults pay only $5. This means that the city is subsidizing each illegal alien resident card between $42 to $52. In a best case scenario where they charge $15 for all issued IDs, this results in a loss of $625,000. The actual loss will be much greater since every applicant is going to want to pay only $5. No wonder California is in such financial trouble where one of their biggest cities can't even design an ID program that does not lose money. (A State of California ID card costs $24.)

The real loss is much higher, given that one reason to issue these IDs to illegal aliens is to enable them to be able to obtain Government assistance from the City and probably the State as well, which surely will cost many millions/billions more. Estimates of the cost of illegal aliens statewide range from $4 billion to over $10 billion. That is a sizable chunk of the state's current budget deficit.

P.S.

San Francisco's Illegal Alien ID Card program is also amusing in how its purpose is to provide documents to illegal aliens resident in San Francisco only. So what do they plan to do when illegal aliens from outside San Francisco use fake documentation to obtain the card? Really, these people have broken the law coming into the US, and again in working in the US and not paying taxes, not to mention that many are also using fake and stolen identification in order to obtain employment. What makes the city think that they will all of a sudden start obeying their laws concerning the issuance of these cards? Illegal Aliens who are not resident in San Francisco will want to get them, especially if they become useful as a breeder document. (Breeder documents establish who you are and enable the issuance of other documents.) I would think they expect this document to become a wanted item as they spent so much for the card issuance machine when there were many more much cheaper options out there. If you look at the list of accepted documents that can be presented in order to get a City ID, one is the 'Matricula Consular'(Consular Identification, CID)

So, if a person has a CID with fraudulent information, he would made that document all the more believable when he pulls out his San Francisco ID that contains the same information, leading anyone presented with the cards to more likely accept the information.

And yes, the Matricular Consular IDs are so questionable that the National Notary Association advises that they do not meet the requirements for notary purposes, and until recently they were not even valid for entry into Mexico! (I think that law was changed to correct the hypocrisy that a document issued by Mexico confirming Mexican citizenship was being rejected by Mexican Officials at the border as evidence of Citizenship)

There is one benefit of properly registering people and by properly I mean registration that includes the collection of biometric information. By having biometric details, it does not matter if a person registering claims to be 'Donald Duck'. Because when they come back and try to register again, the system recognizes them as their last registration.

Bonus:
You know, it is real amusing how the jerks in Congress keep making our problems worse. Take these inaccurate statements made in 2003 from the lady now Speaker of the House:

Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi today released the following statement on the Republican amendment to the Foreign Relations Reauthorization Act, which would restrict the use of the Mexican Consulate’s identification card, the Matrícula Consular. The measure, introduced by Republican Reps. John Hostettler (R-IN), Elton Gallegly (R-CA) and Thomas Tancredo (R-CO), passed by a vote of 226 to 198.

"I am outraged that the Republican majority has again brought an anti-Hispanic measure to the House floor.

"The Matrícula Consular is internationally recognized as a valid form of identification, much like the consular registration issued by the U.S. State Department to our citizens living abroad. It allows many Mexican immigrants to open bank accounts and participate in other activities for which they pay taxes and contribute to the American economy. And the Mexican government has demonstrated to Congress that the Matrícula is secure.

"We in San Francisco know that the Matrícula Consular works. The pilot program in the San Francisco Federal Building was a success until the Republicans stopped it.

"America has been blessed by the beauty of our diverse immigrant community. From that beauty flows our strength, our boundless creativity, and our versatility. As a nation of immigrants, we need to ensure that newcomers have basic access to our government. We won’t give up until the Matrícula Consular is recognized.” - House.Gov 15 July 2003

Legal Immigrants to the US do not need consular IDs as they have a valid passport and visa. With legal entry into the US they can obtain drivers licenses and Green Cards. There is no need for foreign-issued alternatives. There is no need for city-issued IDs either. Where does this all end? How many illegal aliens is California willing to accept? Would they take all of them? If not, then they are a bunch of hypocrites.

As for Mrs. Pelosi's claim that these ID's are acceptable, the FBI thinks otherwise:

The U.S. Government has done an extensive amount of research on the Matricula Consular, to assess its viability as a reliable means of identification. The Department of Justice and the FBI have concluded that 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. The following are the primary problems with the Matricula Consular that allow criminals to fraudulently obtain the cards:

First, the Government of Mexico has no centralized database to coordinate the issuance of consular ID cards. This allows multiple cards to be issued under the same name, the same address, or with the same photograph.

Second, the Government of Mexico has no interconnected databases to provide intra-consular communication to be able to verify who has or has not applied for or received a consular ID card.

Third, the Government of Mexico issues the card to anyone who can produce a Mexican birth certificate and one other form of identity, including documents of very low reliability. Mexican birth certificates are easy to forge and they are a major item on the product list of the fraudulent document trade currently flourishing across the country and around the world. A September 2002 bust of a document production operation in Washington state illustrated the size of this trade. A huge cache of fake Mexican birth certificates was discovered. It is our belief that the primary reason a market for these birth certificates exists is the demand for fraudulently-obtained Matricula Consular cards.

Fourth, in some locations, when an individual seeking a Matricula Consular is unable to produce any documents whatsoever, he will still be issued a Matricula Consular by the Mexican consular official, if he fills out a questionnaire and satisfies the official that he is who he purports to be. - FBI

Maybe the FBI is lying to her as well as the CIA.

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