Existing While Mexican

[October 15th, 2003] In California's recall circus, Arnold Schwarzenegger used a law providing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants to pummel hapless Gray Davis. Exit polls suggested 70 percent of recall voters opposed the law, which the now-defunct Davis signed.

Despite the fire from the governor-elect and Terminator-for-Life, however, California's license controversy doesn't address the underlying issue. Mexican immigrants continue to arrive in the United States at a flood tide. And they're not stopping at the Redding exit.

Census stats released in August point to a 12.4 percent surge in Oregon's Latino population since 2000. Experts compare this demographic sea-change to the great influx of European immigrants into Oregon a century ago.

Something has to give. And that's where the matricula consular comes in.

The matricula is a little plastic ID card, a latter-day version of credentials Mexico has issued citizens living abroad for more than a century. The documentation doesn't indicate whether people are--or are not--here legally, only that they are citizens of Mexico. At Portland's Mexican Consulate, an austere office at Southwest 14th Avenue and Morrison Street, scores of men and women queue up every weekday to apply for matricula cards.

"This is the main focus of our work in the area of documentation," says Mexican Consul General Martha Ortiz de Rosas, Oregon's most important foreign diplomat. "After Sept. 11, it has been very active, because authorities need to know, who are those people?"

In 1996, the Portland consulate issued just 2,651 matriculas. Last year, it handed out nearly 20,000. During a mid-September celebration of Mexico's Independence Day in Woodburn, more than 400 Mexicans claimed matriculas in just one day. The exponential increase reflects the fact that the cards have become almost a necessity for many Mexicans living in Portland--legally or otherwise.

After Mexico upgraded the matricula's anti-fraud features three years ago, the number of businesses, banks and governments across the United States accepting it steadily increased. For people who lack other legal ID, the card can be a ticket to a more legit life.

In Portland, you can use the matricula to open a bank account or deal with the cops. (Portland city government doesn't accept the ID for other functions, but Hillsboro, Beaverton and Woodburn do.) You can board a Mexicana Airlines flight from PDX to Guadalajara. And Oregon--like California and seven states--accepts the matricula as one of several pieces of ID needed to get a driver's license.

This burgeoning popularity has made the card a flash point in the immigration debate. Critics claim the card is helping thousands attain quasi-legal status in the U.S. Homeland Security czar Tom Ridge blasts the cards, saying they're not fraud-proof. Still, the U.S. Treasury Department recently rejected calls to put the matricula off-limits for banks.

Meanwhile, the people standing in line or hunkering down to fill out paperwork at Portland's consulate--along with the 10 million other Mexicans living in the United States, by Ortiz de Rosas' estimate--may render the debate irrelevant.

"They are coming here, and they are coming here because they find jobs to do," the consul says. "Most of them are working in jobs Americans don't want to do."