Panel Passes Bill To Curtail Use Of Foreign ID

The Denver Post

February 11, 2003

Ryan Morgan

A bill that would bar public agencies from accepting forms of identification issued in other countries passed the House Information and Technology committee Monday.

The measure would ban use of the matricula consular card, an increasingly popular form of identification used by many illegal Mexican immigrants. House Bill 1224, introduced by Rep. Don Lee, R-Littleton, was the subject of contentious debate from partisans on both sides of the issue of illegal immigration.

Some of those who testified in favor of the Secure and Verifiable Document Act called it a necessary post-9/11 security fix. Letting undocumented immigrants roam the country and use public services without proof of their identity is a recipe for disaster, they  argued.

But opponents said the bill, which would limit the forms of  identification state agencies could accept to those issued by state  or federal agencies, would unfairly hurt immigrants, on whom the  state relies for some of its most back-breaking labor.

Rep. Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, railed against the bill.

'In Pueblo, we had farmers who couldn't get their crops in because they couldn't find migrant labor,' she said.

Butcher also castigated the bill, and some of the witnesses who testified on its behalf, for denying basic services, including marriage licenses and death certificates, to those without proper identification.

'We should just put a sign up saying, 'No Mexicans married or buried here,'' she said.

But committee chairman Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, said he would vote for the bill 'because of the benefits it will have.'

HB 1224 passed the committee by a vote of 7-4. It will next be voted on by the entire House.