At the end of February, councilwoman María Quiñones-Sánchez introduced a bill to city council that would enable the city to issue municipal photo ID cards (council members Helen Gym and Curtis Jones Jr. are co-sponsors). The bill acknowledges how vital being able to prove identity is — vulnerable and marginalized communities who cannot present an official photo ID have problems securing housing, opening a bank account, getting a library card, cashing checks, picking up packages at the post office, seeing a doctor at a hospital, even filing a complaint with police.
Despite what those who seem to want to stoke anti-immigrant hysteria would have you believe, the beneficiaries of municipal ID aren’t only the undocumented residents of a municipality.
The homeless (including LGBT youths), trans folks, victims of domestic violence, low-income elderly, and a whole host of other people are all beneficiaries when low-cost municipal IDs (that don’t stipulate gender) are made available to residents. These IDs can even, in fact, be an effective means to fight a type of crime that targets undocumented immigrants as “walking ATMS,” by enabling the immigrants to open bank accounts to deposit cash, and by encouraging those victimized immigrants to report the crime to police.
In proposing a municipal ID, Philadelphia follows in the steps of Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, New Haven, even several counties in Michigan, that all offer municipal IDs, as well as various municipalities in New Jersey (Asbury Park, Freehold and Trenton) that were among the first to implement them.
There are some concerns that municipal IDs could stigmatize, even encourage racial profiling, of users. In New Haven, for example, there are questions about incidents in 2007 when anti-immigrant groups, and perhaps even ICE, accessed the names of municipal ID users via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in order to target immigrants. The possibility of using the municipal IDs in this way, however, is mitigated by encouraging as many city residents as possible use the ID.
Many cities have encouraged all residents to get municipal IDs by adding benefits. For example, it can be used as a library card and debit card at local stores and for city parking meters (New Haven); can provide discounts on entry to city attractions (San Francisco); serve as a full-use debit card (Oakland); offer free membership to cultural institutions (New York); and offer discounts on prescription drugs and be used for public transit (Los Angeles).
In New Jersey’s Mercer County, the municipal ID card is now recognized and accepted as ID by law enforcement agencies, healthcare providers, the board of social services, courts, recreational locations, libraries, and retail establishments.
Done the right way, muncipal ID cards will not only benefit multiple vulnerable populations in our city, they will benefit all of us.