Matricular Consular Cards: Two Sides to the Issue

I want to respond to Mike Welch’s Sept. 17th column “Are Matricular Consular Cards Good Or Bad?” and request for views on the matricular consular card issue. It seems to me that we are really dealing with two different questions. First, should we accept these cards as a form of acceptable identification and second, should we accept illegal aliens as members of credit unions? If a credit union board has made the decision to allow undocumented workers/illegal aliens to join, then there should be no reason to not accept the matricular consular as an acceptable form of identification. To not accept them because they can be forged is unreasonable because virtually every form of ID can and is forged all the time. Not accepting the matricular consular card in such a case would be simply a “back door” way to deny membership to illegal aliens/undocumented workers. With respect to the second question, our board has not yet determined how it wants to handle this issue. We are torn between wanting to reach out and help these “undocumented workers” to receive fairly priced financial services. However, we also want to support the laws of this country by not facilitating the process of illegal immigration. We believe that to assist people who have circumvented our immigration laws contributes to higher social welfare costs and the tax burden of those who live here legally. There are many who claim that these workers are merely performing jobs that no one else is willing to do and we should not frustrate their efforts to access mainstream financial services. If this is the case, our government needs to implement guest worker programs that allow for these services to be provided. If it is illegal to knowingly hire illegal workers, maybe it should also be illegal to knowingly provide them with services (and isn’t that what we are doing when we wink and accept the matricular consular from folks that have no green card?). Since the various government agencies have not successfully dealt with these issues, I guess it might be okay to just duck this problem. In our case, we know that there are plenty of “new Americans” that we can serve as we reach out to underserved segments of our society, and thus far we have chosen not to expand our outreach efforts to include the “illegal aliens/undocumented workers” in our area. Marshall Boutwell President/CEO Gwinnett FCU Lawrenceville, Ga.