San Francisco politicians have no connection to reality.
In the midst of huge financial struggles for the city, the Board of Supervisors began issuing municipal identification cards last week to anyone who provides an ID and a utility bill with a local address or evidence of a child in local public schools.
It sounds innocuous except that the main, and likely only, true beneficiaries of the cards, are illegal aliens.
Again: what is there about the word “illegal” the supervisors don’t understand?
In a case of unintended consequences, this all ties into the national financial crashes.
California is on the ropes financially as is virtually every city in the state. Real estate is tanking, banks are failing, credit is virtually nonexistent, businesses are folding right and left, hiring is at a standstill, unemployment lines get longer and people are finally getting the message that the bubble has burst and reality is settling in with a vengeance.
We’re in trouble financially and struggling to survive.
It’s clear San Francisco doesn’t care. Estimates are that the card program will initially cost nearly $900,000 on top of an unbalanced city budget.
Hundreds lined up last Thursday to get their IDs. Reservations were made to handle the applicants; it’s estimated when the system gets rolling, they’ll give out 50 every day.
The idea is that the cards will make it easier for people to do business with banks and other businesses, to get credit, to take advantage of city services including health care and even – to check out library books!
They’ll also make it easier for illegals to get jobs – work that should go to American citizens. – and it doesn’t hurt to have an ID card when the cops stop you.
The fact that the information on the card could be totally false doesn’t seem to bother anyone.
For years, Mexican consulates across the country have been handing out “matricular consular” cards to any Mexican who wants one. They’re supposed to identify the individual by name and that they’re a Mexican citizen. That’s it. There’s nothing about immigration status or even identity verification.
Illegals can use these cards as part of their “proof of residence” to get the San Francisco ID. The whole scheme creates a fake, paper trail toward amnesty for illegals.
San Francisco supervisors approved the card idea in 2007. There was a huge uproar when word got out, but they ignored it.
Then came the murder in broad daylight of a father and his two adult sons by illegals who were gang members and who, it turned out, were being protected from deportation by San Francisco’s Juvenile Department with the tacit blessing of Mayor Gavin Newsom and the supervisors.
A series of scathing articles in the San Francisco Chronicle, which exposed the extent of the city protecting supposedly juvenile, illegal felons, caused Mayor Newsom to shelve the ID card program temporarily.
Several city residents sued, claiming the ID cards helped and encouraged illegal immigration. But in October, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch threw the case out.
With that, up popped the plan again, and this time they’re doing it. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who as supervisor wrote the card law, was on hand to get his own card, as were other Board members.
Ah, the symbolism!
Speaking of symbolism, Mayor Newsom wasn’t there. According to the Chronicle, Newsom’s aides “… alternately said (he) was running late or was busy in a meeting upstairs.”
Wiser politicos surmised the mayor avoided being there because of concern negative connotations would hurt his run for governor next year.
He got burned for approving “gay” marriage despite the state constitution. Apparently, he doesn’t want Californians to know he supports illegal immigration, which violates federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
But this story connects directly to the recession/depression.
Since 2002, Mexico has pushed issuing “matricular consular” cards to Mexicans living in this country – most illegally, but they didn’t ask.
Then in 2006 and 2007, U.S. banks, smelling new business, got in on the action and began accepting the matricular cards as ID and allowing Hispanics to get credit cards. Bank of America started a pilot program in Los Angeles followed by national expansion. They said they wanted to help people lacking solid credit histories and had nothing to do with immigration.
Wells Fargo & Co and Citibank launched similar programs. In 2006, Wells Fargo began offering home mortgages to “immigrants” who lived in the U.S. for two years and who didn’t have a Social Security number.
But Wells Fargo offered bank accounts to foreigners with Mexican consulate ID cards as early as 2001. They were the first; others followed. None questioned immigration status. Scores of banks across the country did the same.
Am I the only one to see a relationship between the bank crisis/mortgage meltdown and this rampant giveaway of money to people who should never have such access? How many of the bank problems and foreclosures are results of such lending policies to illegals?
The Los Angeles Times, in 2007, quoted Bank of America spokeswoman Alexandra C. Trower as saying they complied with all laws.
The same article quoted Wells Fargo spokesman Mary Trigg. Wells Fargo, which opened more than a million Mexican accounts, also accepts ID cards from Guatemala, Columbia and Argentina.
Trigg said it’s assumed most card users are illegal but that the bank doesn’t ask.
Citibank and other banks did the same.
Do those bank names sound familiar? Is anyone paying attention to the billions the government has given to bail them out and how many billions more they want?
Am I the only one to ask why this connection to illegal aliens hasn’t been part of the discussion?
Maybe I’m the only one with the guts to ask, but we still need answers.
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