It is fairly common practice for the embassies and consulates of foreign states, including theUnited States, to encourage their citizens abroad to register with the consulates so that they canreceive standard consular services, be notified if necessary, and be located upon inquiry by relativesand authorities. Consular registration has been widely recognized and protected under internationallaw for many years, most recently by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963. The current debate about consular identification cards in the United States has centeredaround the matrÃ­cula consular, the consular card issued by the Mexican government to its citizensin the United States when they register with a consulate. As a result, this report focuses mainly onthe Mexican identification card, although Guatemala, Ecuador, and Brazil also issue such cards, andother nations, including El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, and Poland, are reportedly considering similarprograms. Legislation introduced in the 108th and 109th Congresses, discussed below, wouldgenerally apply to consular identification cards from any country. According to Mexican officials, Mexico has been issuing consular identification cards since1871, but demand for the cards has grown dramatically in recent years. The number of cards issuedhas increased significantly under the administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox (2000-2006),who has emphasized service to citizens abroad, and since the terrorist attacks of September 2001,when identity documents became increasingly necessary in the United States. Following the terrorist attacks in the United States, Mexico redesigned and added newfeatures to the matrÃ­cula consular to make it a more useful and secure document. The new verisonof the card, which the Mexican government calls the "high security consular registration" (matrÃ­culaconsular de alta seguridad, MCAS, in Spanish), first became available in the United States in March2002. (1) Each of the newcards has the photograph, name, signature, date and place of birth, and U.S. address of the bearer,as well as a serial number, date of issue and expiration, and the name of the issuing consulate. Thecards have a number of security features that are designed to make the cards tamper-proof andnon-duplicable. (2) According to Mexican officials, to obtain a matrÃ­cula consular card, an applicant must appearin person and must present the following documentation: (1) a birth certificate or other documentdemonstrating Mexican citizenship; (2) a document with a picture demonstrating identity, such asa voter identification or a driver's license; and (3) proof of a local address in the United States, suchas a utility bill. The cards are issued for a five-year period upon payment of a $26 fee. In responseto past criticisms, (3) a July2004 document provided by the Mexican Embassy claims that Mexico has developed a nationaldatabase of passport and consular data that can be used to prevent the issuance of duplicate andfraudulent cards. It also has the ability to check the persons identity against the large Mexican voterregistration database and against a "stop list" of approximately 13,000 records of non-acceptablepersons, including fugitives or people who have attempted to use fake documents in the past. According to Mexican officials, 2.2 million of the high security identification cards were issued fromMarch 6, 2002, to July 18, 2004. They estimate that almost 4 million Mexicans in the United Stateshave consular ID cards of the older and newer versions. They note that by March of 2007 all of theold cards will have expired and will have been replaced by the new high-security cards. In recent years, Mexican consulates in the United States and other interested parties havesought, with some success, to gain acceptance of the matrÃ­cula consular as identification for a varietyof purposes. According to the July 2004 white paper provided by the Mexican Embassy, thematrÃ­cula consular is accepted as valid identification in 377 cities, 163 counties, and 33 states, aswell as 178 financial institutions and 1,180 police departments in the United States. Additionally,12 states recognize the card as one of the acceptable proofs of identity to obtain a driver's license. It is also accepted by numerous telephone and utility companies, hospitals, and video stores, amongother establishments. Some entities, however, have decided against accepting the cards. Citing security concerns,the New York City Police Department has declined to recognize the matrÃ­cula consular. The NewYork State Department of Motor Vehicles has also refused requests to add the matrÃ­cula consularto its list of acceptable identity documents for obtaining a driver's license. In Colorado, a recentlyenacted law states that public entities can accept only identification documents that are issued by astate or federal jurisdiction or that are recognized by the U.S. government. At the federal level, the Treasury Department, along with other agencies, issued finalregulations on May 9, 2003, setting forth the identifying information that banks had to obtain, at aminimum, from a customer prior to opening an account. (4) Section 326 of the USA PATRIOT ACT ( P.L. 107-56 ) directedthe Treasury Department to prescribe such regulations. Under the May 2003 regulations, therequired customer information includes an identification number. For non-U.S. persons, thisidentification number can be one or more of four specified numbers, one being the "number andcountry of issuance of [a] government-issued document evidencing nationality or residence andbearing a photograph or similar safeguard." (5) The rule became effective on June 9, 2003, and banks had to bein compliance by October 1, 2003. In an October 2002 report to Congress also mandated by Section326 of the Patriot Act, which referenced the regulations in proposed form, the Treasury Departmentspecifically addressed the matrÃ­cula consular. A footnote in the report stated: "Thus, the proposedregulations do not discourage bank acceptance of the 'matricula consular' identity card that is beingissued by the Mexican government to immigrants." (6) Following publication of the final rule in May 2003, the Treasury Department re-opened thequestion of accepting certain forms of foreign government-issued identification to verify customeridentity. On July 1, 2003, it published a notice of inquiry in the Federal Register requestingadditional input on this issue and recordkeeping provisions. (7) In the notice, it posed a seriesof questions about whether the regulations should preclude financial institutions from acceptingcertain forms of foreign government-issued identification. The notice further indicated that after thecomments had been considered a determination would be made about whether to proposeamendments to the May 2003 regulations. On September 18, 2003, the Treasury Departmentannounced that after reviewing over 34,000 comments, it had decided not to recommend any changesto the rules. (8) Further developments relating to the acceptance or non-acceptance of consular identificationcards are expected. A federal interagency working group chaired by the Department of HomelandSecurity, with representatives from various executive branch agencies, has been developingrecommendations for a federal policy on these cards, and the 9/11 Commission recommended thatthe United States set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, suchas driver's licenses. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, approved inDecember 2004 in response to the 9/11 Commission recommendations, requires the Secretary ofHomeland Security to propose, subject to congressional approval, minimum standards foridentification documents to be used by airline passengers (and, after a report, for entry to designatedfederal facilities) and establishes strict default standards in the event of congressional disapproval. On February 10, 2005, the House passed H.R. 418 , the REAL ID Act of 2005(Sensenbrenner), that would establish identity card standards for the issuance of drivers' licenses thatwould seem to preclude the use of consular ID cards for those purposes. This measure was attachedby the House to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for FY2005 ( H.R. 1268 )as Division B on March 16, 2005. Following conference, H.R. 1268 was passed with thespecified provisions by the House and Senate in early May 2005, and it was signed into law ( P.L.109-13 ) on May 11, 2005. The acceptance of the matrÃ­cula consular for various purposes by the Treasury Departmentand by local governments and other public and private entities in the United States has raised anumber of questions for U.S. policy. The possible domestic policy implications -- as well as foreignpolicy implications -- were initially discussed at two June 2003 oversight hearings on consularidentification cards held by the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, BorderSecurity, and Claims. (9) Subsequently, these implications have been discussed in the context of the Treasury Department July2003 reopening of the question of accepting certain forms of foreign government-issuedidentification to verify customer identity, and in the context of the consideration of the variouslegislative proposals mentioned below, especially the REAL ID Act of 2005. Domestic policyquestions about acceptance of the matrÃ­cula consular fall mainly in the overlapping areas ofimmigration, public safety and law enforcement, and homeland security. In important respects, the debate over the matrÃ­cula consular is a debate about how to addressthe issue of unauthorized immigration to the United States. Those who support domestic acceptanceof the matrÃ­cula consular emphasize that the card is issued solely for identification purposes and doesnot confer any type of legal immigration status on the bearer.