The VCCR is an agreement that governs consular relations among approximately 165 nations. Under the VCCR, countries can conduct various consular functions, such as issuing travel documents and passports to their citizens. Consular registration—the practice by which an individual may register with his or her consulate in a foreign country— may assist consular officials in performing a variety of consular services, such as locating missing citizens and determining whether citizens are safe. According to the Department of State, issuance of CID cards falls within the general scope of permissible consular functions. For more than 133 years, the government of Mexico has been issuing a CID card, the Matrícula Consular to citizens living abroad. As of June 2004, the CID cards are issued in the United States at 45 consulate office locations in 20 states and Washington, D.C. Consulate offices may occasionally issue these cards at offsite locations, such as community centers, throughout their jurisdiction. The government of Guatemala began issuing its version of a CID card, called the Tarjeta de Identificación Consular Guatemalteca, in the United States in August 2002. Guatemala maintains 8 consulate offices in 6 states and Washington, D.C., and also occasionally issues CID cards at offsite locations within the geographic area covered by the local consulate. In October 2003, Argentina began a program to make CID cards with new security features available to its citizens in the Los Angeles, California, metropolitan area. As of May 2004, Argentina had issued approximately 2,400 cards. Several other countries have expressed interest in issuing their own identification cards to their citizens living in the United States but as of late 2003 had not yet done so. These countries include Bolivia, Peru, and El Salvador; Peru has specifically cited the acceptance of the Mexican CID card in the United States as a factor contributing to its interest in issuing a CID card. CID cards are issued to help identify the citizenship of persons residing in a foreign country. While some consulates may issue CID cards, these documents have no bearing on the cardholder’s legal residence status in the host country. Thus, CID cardholders can be either undocumented aliens living in the United States or legal residents. Under the terms of the VCCR, these cardholders, regardless of their residency status, possess certain legal rights. For example, U.S. law enforcement officials and others must advise a resident alien who is arrested or otherwise detained in the United States of his or her right to request that the appropriate consular officials be notified of the detention without delay. Cardholders can, in turn, alert federal, state, and municipal law enforcement authorities of the need to notify consular officials when assistance is needed. Austin, Texas, was one of the first areas in the country where a financial institution accepted the Mexican CID card as valid identification for opening a bank account, according to Mexican embassy representatives. An official with the Austin Police Department told us that in 2000 the department became concerned about the rate of robberies committed against the Hispanic immigrant community. Members of this community, which, according to the official, includes a large number of undocumented aliens, may not report crimes to the police for fear of deportation. After meeting with representatives of the Hispanic community and the Mexican consulate, the police department determined that robberies could be reduced if community members made greater use of the U.S. banking system rather than keeping large amounts of cash at home or on their person. In November 2000, the Austin Police Department began contacting area banks to determine if they would accept the Mexican CID card as identification for opening bank accounts. According to this police department official, one bank operating in Austin agreed to accept the card as valid identification in early 2001. The Mexican embassy has reported that 160 financial institutions nationwide now accept the Mexican CID card as proof of identity for opening bank accounts. An official in the Guatemalan embassy told us that that some banks are accepting the Guatemalan CID card as well. Some reasons for financial institution acceptance of the Mexican CID, in particular, were recently stated by a state banking association. The association believes that bank acceptance of CID cards can aid law enforcement, not only for assisting immigrants who may be targeted by criminals because of their tendency to possess cash, but also for possibly combating money–laundering and terrorism. Banks, the association said, are subject to numerous layers of federal and state regulation and oversight that can assist federal officials in monitoring international money transmissions. Also, banks accept the Mexican CID in order to better serve members of the immigrant community without bank accounts, often referred to as the “unbanked.” The association said that serving the unbanked provides a new source for deposits, loans, and wire transfers, which benefit the economy at large. In addition, a Treasury official said that there are no laws prohibiting undocumented aliens from opening bank accounts in the United States and that banks are not required to determine whether their customers are present in the United States legally. The official also said that for purposes of fraud or money-laundering detection, the department would prefer to have as many people as possible active in the U.S. banking system, because their financial activities could be closely monitored. Subsequent to the acceptance of the Mexican CID card by the bank in Austin, the Austin Police Department itself decided to recognize the card as a valid form of identification. In addition, the city of Austin also began accepting the card to help Mexican citizens living in the community gain access to community courts and obtain other documents, such as library cards and copies of locally maintained medical records. A representative of the Dallas, Texas, Police Department told us that the department began accepting the CID cards primarily as a means to allow officers to properly identify all people that they came in contact with who may lack other forms of identification. According to the Mexican embassy, as of February 2004, 1,159 U.S. police departments nationwide accept the Mexican CID card as a valid identity document. In December 2001, the Mayor of San Francisco signed a policy establishing the Mexican CID as valid identification in the city and county of San Francisco; this policy included the police and sheriff’s departments. The San Francisco Office of the Mayor, in a press release, declared that this acceptance would help members of the Mexican immigrant community, who may otherwise be jailed or deported for minor offenses if they do not possess an accepted form of identification. Use of the CID card as a recognized form of identification would, in turn, help reduce police processing time spent handling these offenses. The release also cited a benefit expressed by the Austin police, that extending official acceptance to the CID card might allow immigrants to be less fearful in reporting crimes to police, since they would now possess acceptable identification. Some cities and counties have begun accepting the Mexican CID card as valid identification for obtaining city or county services. The Mexican embassy states that 363 cities and 153 counties recognize its CID card as of February 2004. An official of one county housing and community affairs department testified before Congress that county government must provide for public safety and health, education, and other basic services, and that accepting these CID cards helps to identify the people who need these services. Because CID cards contain a local address, the official testified, the county can determine whether applicants for services are residents of the county. In August 2003, according to the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), 13 states accepted the Mexican CID as one form of valid ID in issuing driver’s licenses. Representatives of immigrant advocacy groups we contacted and whose positions we reviewed have argued that accepting CID cards for driver’s licenses helps states maximize the number of licensed and potentially insured drivers on their highways. However, we found that at least 2 states have recently rescinded their prior acceptance of CID cards in issuing driver’s licenses. For example, North Carolina (1 of the 13 states mentioned above) decided that, effective February 2004, it would no longer accept foreign-issued documents (except passports) as proof of identity for driver’s license issuance. In discussing this decision, an official with the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) stated that the DMV had heard concerns through the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) that the FBI and DHS did not support public acceptance of the Mexican CID card. In addition, this official informed us that some state residents had expressed concerns over and opposition to Mexican CID card acceptance to the Office of the Governor and DMV. Among these concerns, some residents felt that CID acceptance might help people not legally present in the United States to circumvent immigration laws. The DMV Commissioner made an administrative decision that, beginning in February 2004, the DMV would only accept documents issued by state or federal governments, or federally validated international passports, as proof of identification when issuing driver’s license or state ID cards. In addition, in December 2003, the Governor of California approved a bill that repealed the provisions of a law passed in September 2003 that would have allowed driver’s license applicants to submit a Mexican CID card as proof of identity. In September 2003, a bill passed by the California Legislature (S.B.60) and signed into law by the then Governor, provided among other things, that an applicant for a driver’s license could submit an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) to the Department of Motor Vehicles in lieu of a Social Security number (SSN). If submitting an ITIN, the applicant must also submit an acceptable birth certificate and one of a number of other identification documents that included the Mexican CID card. These provisions were to take effect on January 1, 2004. However, in December 2003, a new bill passed by the legislature and signed into law by the new Governor repealed S.B.60. Thus, the ITIN and the CID card as an adjunct identification document were both rendered invalid for obtaining a driver’s license in California.