ID NYC: Key to the City?
By Bazona Bado
Sitting at a table with 10 other people, Mark Brown is waiting for his turn to apply for a municipal identification card. He is holding his passport and an application as he waits at the Bronx Business Center, one of two enrollment centers in the borough.
“I want this ID card for police checking,” he said. Brown said he was born in New York, though he holds a foreign passport.
Brown is one of thousands of New Yorkers, 14 and older, who have been applying for the new cards since the program began on January 12, 2015. The ID allows carriers to “open bank accounts, sign apartment leases and access other services where a photo ID is required.” It also gives them one year free membership at 33 city museums and zoos.
One group the ID is meant to help is undocumented New Yorkers who can apply if they present proof of residency and identity. The acceptable list of residency documents is long and includes cable, phone, or utility bills; a letter from middle or high schools, and a letter from NYC homeless shelters. Identity can be proven with a foreign passport, a U.S. State Department issued visa, and even a NYC mobile food vending unit license. Expired foreign passports work as well.
“We don’t check applicants’ status,” said Camp Belle, 35, a staff member at the center. “If you are undocumented immigrants or homeless you can get this ID.” You may also have a criminal past and still receive the ID.
In fact, the ID card is meant to help this group, according to the mayor, who said that adults re-entering society after incarceration “need extra opportunities.” Transgender people will also benefit, he said, because for the first time, they will be able “to choose their gender marker on their ID.”
The card is also aimed at others who currently avoid contact with government agencies for fear of negative consequences. “The municipal ID is a powerful tool to bring more New Yorkers out of the shadows and into the mainstream,” the mayor said in a September 2014 statement. “It is now also a key that opens the door for hundreds of thousands of more New Yorkers to our city’s premier assets in culture, science and entertainment.”
The municipal identification card is not a driver’s license or a work permit. You cannot operate a vehicle or work legally just because you have the ID. New York City is not the first city to give a municipal ID card. Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Haven and Connecticut have instituted an ID program.
The enrollment center was empty at 1:00 pm on a Friday in February with just one young woman, Mercedes Davidson, applying for an ID. Her 3-year-old son stood by her side. A young man who identified himself only as Ali had a Yemeni passport but he wasn’t able to apply. The clerk explained that he needed additional proof of residency, for example, a Con Edison or telephone bill. And, there is always a possibility that applicants will be denied a municipal ID card if the documents are deemed inadequate. To get the municipal ID card, an applicant needs to have at least four points worth of proof, three points of identity and one of residency. There are 65 possible documents they can use to establish these.
The city tries to allay concerns some applicants might have that information they provide could be used against them. The IDNYC website says the city will protect the confidentiality of applicants to the “maximum extent allowable by applicable federal and state law.” It also says that copies of application materials will be destroyed no later than two years after they are submitted.