Minuteman Project targets Mexican consulates' actions

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An anti-illegal-immigration group wants the Mexican consulate in San Bernadino, Calif., to stop providing off-site services and issuing identification cards that can be used by undocumented immigrants.

The Minuteman Project believes the consulate's mobile units violate U.S. sovereignty and that the cards encourage illegal immigration.

Last week, about 20 Minuteman Project supporters rallied outside the consulate, which serves Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Minutemen also have demonstrated outside other Mexican consulates, including diplomatic posts in Santa Ana and San Diego, and at some of the mobile consulates.

Some Mexican consulates regularly set up temporary operations for a few days at schools, stores and other places. The acting Mexican consul in San Bernardino, Jeremias Guzman Barrera, said the mobile units were created years ago to make services more convenient to the Mexican nationals who don't have cars or can't take off work to visit the consulate.

Anti-illegal-immigration activists are especially irked that the consulates use the mobile units to issue matriculas consulares, which are identification cards that the Mexican government has been distributing to its expatriates since the 1870s.

U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., also objects to the ID cards.

Since the Mexican government revamped the card in 2002 and added security features, an increasing number of police departments, banks and other institutions have accepted it as a valid ID. Mexican officials do not check card applicants' immigration status.

Raymond Herrera, national rally spokesman for the Minutemen and a Victorville, Calif. resident, said consular officials are "aiding and abetting" the violation of U.S. immigration laws by issuing matriculas consulares.

Jason Mrochek, co-founder and national director of the Menifee, Calif.-based Fire Coalition, an umbrella organization of anti-illegal-immigration groups, said the mobile consulates violate international law. Foreign governments can set up operations outside a consulate building only with U.S. government approval, Mrochek said.

Edwin Smith, a professor of law and international relations at USC and an expert in international law, said consular officials are permitted to travel throughout their host countries to serve their citizens. They do not need U.S. government approval, he said.

Smith said the Mexican consulates violate no U.S. or international law by issuing matriculas.

"Their job is to service their nationals, wherever they are and whether they are illegal immigrants or not," Smith said.

Calvert said he has no problem with Mexican consular officials going off-site to help their citizens obtain Mexican passports or access most other services. But Calvert said he would consider introducing a bill barring federally funded institutions from hosting consular visits at which the matricula is issued.

Taxpayer money should not be used to facilitate illegal immigration, Calvert said by phone.

"Not only are they providing a service to people who are here illegally, but they are providing identification which will help accommodate the breaking of the laws of this country," he said.

Calvert is co-sponsor of a bill that would bar banks and the federal government from accepting matriculas as valid IDs.

Some publicly funded institutions are voluntarily prohibiting the mobile consulates. After a Dec. 9 Minuteman Project demonstration at Capistrano Adult School in San Juan Capistrano, the Capistrano Unified School District asked the Mexican consulate to no longer use Capistrano schools, said Beverly De Nicola, spokeswoman for the Orange County district. The Santa Ana consulate agreed, she said.

De Nicola said the district was worried about the "safety and security of the campus." She declined to elaborate.

Matriculas are recognized as legal identification by some Inland law-enforcement agencies, including the Riverside and San Bernardino county sheriff's offices, which primarily use them to identify county jail visitors. Many banks also accept them.

Mrochek said matriculas are only useful to illegal immigrants because legal residents and citizens can get other photo IDs.

The U.S. government has sent mixed signals about the matriculas. In 2003 congressional testimony, an FBI official said the Mexican government doesn't do enough to verify the identity of cardholders, leaving them vulnerable to use by terrorists. Mexican officials say they carefully check applicants' identity before issuing the cards.

But the Treasury Department in 2002 ruled that the matriculas qualify as valid ID for banks.

In an e-mailed statement, Treasury Department spokeswoman Jennifer Zuccarelli said that "bringing individuals into the formal financial system and out of the shadows," makes all Americans safer.

E-mail David Olson at dolson(at)PE.com

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)