ARLINGTON, Va. – The question of whether credit unions and bankscan accept the Matricula Consular card as identification for newmembers to open news accounts appears to remain significantly lesssettled than supporters would have wished. The Mexican Governmentissues Matricula Consular cards for Mexican nationals who areliving in the U.S. but who are not documented. Other governmentsissue similar cards for their undocumented nationals in the U.S. aswell, but Mexico has issued the largest volume of cards. Critics ofbanks and credit unions accepting the cards for use asidentification in opening accounts have charged that the cards arenot reliable means of identification and that they are vulnerableto use by terrorists and criminals. Supporters, including creditunions, have argued that the identification cards allow them toserve their fields of membership with vital services that moveimmigrants into the financial mainstream. Supporters also maintainthat the question has been settled by policy makers and is unlikelyto be revisited, but activists who say they are working “in thegrassroots” assert that the question is far from settled. FreemanSawyer, a long time member of the $638 million Altura Credit Union,which used to be known as Riverside County's Credit Union, was oneof about 40 picketers at the credit union's Riverside headquarters(see related story page 1 to 52). He said that his organization,the Citizens Alliance for A Secure America, was only one of manygroups seeking to reverse policy makers mistaken position on thecards. “The credit union says that the practice is not illegal andI will concede that,” Sawyer said, “but it's also against the lawto aid and abet illegal aliens. In our view that is precisely whatthey are doing.” Sawyer and other critics primarily complain thatthe Mexican government lacks the technology or will to keep thesorts of vital records that the Matricula cards require and thatthe cards are extremely easy to forge. “Essentially, we have madeit very easy for anyone to enter into this country and startconducting financial business, including even laundering money,here,” Sawyer said. “It's not just terrorists, its drug smuggling,human smuggling and gangs as well,” he added. Sawyer and othersources said the profile of the Matricula issue has risen alongwith interest in immigration reform, particularly in the Southwestportion of the U.S. which shares a border with Mexico. Interest hasbeen further fueled, Sawyer and sources agreed, because two radiopersonalities, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, have taken on thecards as part of their afternoon radio program on KFI AM 640 radioin Los Angeles. Sawyer and others said the radio personalities,neither of whom have any links to Mexico, have managed to illegallyget Matricula cards with their pictures which looked just like thereal thing. A call to the radio station could not verify thereports, but the radio station's Web site did confirm that the pairwill lead a delegation of “angry citizens” to Washington D.C. toprotest the use of the cards and other immigration issues in lateApril. “I hate to say it, but sometimes the beast lashes out moststrongly right before it dies,” said John Herrera, one of thefounders of the Durham, North Carolina, based $19 million LatinoCommunity Credit Union. Herrera cast the ongoing conflict in thecontext of anxiety some Americans feel about globalization, theloss of jobs and continuing frustration among Americans with animmigration policy which was crafted at a time when familyreunification drove immigration concerns. “We have to face the factthat the immigration policy reflects concerns about familyreunification at a time when economic necessity is what drives U.S.immigration,” he said. Herrera used the example of the U.S. sweetpotato industry, which is largely based in the Carolinas, as anexample. Sweet potatoes have to be harvested by hand and the laboris back-breakingly hard. Immigrants need to be on hand to do thatwork, whether undocumented or documented, because even Americanswho do it will not want their children to follow after them doingit. “The trend line across generations is away from non-skilledmanual labor,” he pointed out. In the absence of real immigrationreform and some sort of guest worker program, Matricula consularcards are part of the system the U.S. government has approved totrack and support an economically necessary work force. CreditUnion Impact? For their part, CUNA and NAFCU in the past havesupported credit unions being able to use the cards foridentification and both associations say that their positions havenot changed. CUNA characterized matricula critics as a noisyminority and not one that represents mainstream thought and NAFCUpointed out that federal law and regulation allows credit unions touse the cards. Yet Herrera and matricula opponents agreed that avigorous national debate on immigration policy is looming and thatthe matricula question may not be completely resolved until thatconversation finally takes place. “This is a conversation we reallyneed to have,” Herrera said. [email protected]