Imagine coming home to find your house burglarized. Your window has been broken, your privacy has been invaded and your belongings have been stolen.
The police arrive, and instead of taking note of the incident, they ask for your ID.
That scene was all too real for Viri Hernandez.
“It took me a long time to call the police because I was scared, because at that time I was undocumented,” Hernandez said. “Police officers came and the first question they asked was if they could see my ID.”
For Hernandez, it was a wake-up call.
“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness,’ did I just get broken into and call the police to report and now I’m gonna be arrested,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez now works as campaign coordinator at One Phx ID, an organization campaigning for a card that would combine memberships for various Phoenix services and act as identification.
“Having a municipal local ID that makes you feel like you’re part of the city, that makes you feel like you belong is going to have huge investments,” Hernandez said. “Because then we want to invest, we want to be part of our city, we want to participate.”
While a subcommittee meeting in October put the city service card on hold, One Phx ID continues to advocate for it.
The conversation began in Phoenix around three years ago.
Hernandez said she was part of a group of people who had noticed an issue in crime reporting.
Crimes went unreported in neighborhoods because undocumented immigrants were afraid of calling the police and being arrested when asked for further identification, she said.
Hernandez said the issue was affecting instances of reporting burglary, parents trying to visit or volunteer with their children at their schools and whether or not women in abusive relationships were seeking help.
Municipal ID cards had been issued in multiple cities since 2007, including Oakland, California, San Francisco, Newark, New Jersey, and New York City, Hernandez said.
One Phx ID launched its website and campaign last year. Since then, they have collected 12,000 pledge cards from Phoenix residents who would support a city ID card in a vote, she said.
The ID card, which would include generic information, including a person’s age, personal statistics, address and a picture, would also ideally combine the barcode technologies from various city services like the library and Valley Metro transportation to eliminate multiple cards.
Various local businesses and nearby art institutions have promised they would give discounts or free offers to people who brought in Phoenix ID cards to create an incentive for supporting Phoenix’s small businesses.
Another beneficiary, Hernandez said, would be the handicapped community in Phoenix. A single card would prevent any issue distinguishing between items or combing through various cards.
It would also benefit out-of-state graduate students who do not want to change their driver’s licenses, Hernandez said.
These communities want to be a part of Phoenix, but find they are being excluded, Hernandez said.
“(Mayor Greg Stanton) wants it to be one of the most inclusive cities in the world and he talks about exclusivity and all these issues,” she said. “For us, this is what the ID is. We found that there [are] a lot of communities that have been pushed off to the side just [because of] lack of ID.”
The card was brought up in a subcommittee meeting chaired by District 4 Councilwoman Laura Pastor in October.
At the meeting, the card’s financial feasibility was brought into question as the city’s IT Specialist expected a $2 million cost for software to bring the city-service systems together.
District 2 Councilman Jim Waring was especially against the idea, calling its dismissal a “no-brainer” and not worth the price tag.
Other council members voiced concern that its estimated savings – $25,000 in card stock – were negligible compared to the cost, a price that could increase due to lack of existing software.
A software to combine all the city service systems does not currently exist, according to the city’s IT Specialist, so the city would have to work with the private sector to finance and create an entirely new program to do so.
Vice Mayor and District 5 councilman Daniel Valenzuela said he was worried that by not investing in the ID card, the city could be missing out on a financial advantage with its current systems nearing upgrades.
The card would not qualify as a driver’s license, but its implications as a second form of identification have proven controversial with some council members.
The card could potentially act as a form of identification for undocumented immigrants, an issue critics said requires actions from the state, whose job it is to decide what qualifies as an ID card.
Critics, including Waring, believe One Phx ID and other supporters may be operating under false premise that the card would guarantee them more rights than they have now, as it would solely just be to combine city services.
Waring also expected the estimated time frame and cost would both increase during the program’s conception, an issue the city previously faced upgrading their polices systems. He said the city may be better off waiting for another city to develop a program.
One Phx ID and Hernandez continue to find venues for discussion with the council.
Eleven members of the community gave emotional testimonies to the entire council at the Nov. 18 City Council meeting.
They asked council members to do their part by placing the ID card on the agenda and passing it before the end of the year.
“The community has done their part in finding the resources to get this done,” Hernandez said at the Nov. 18 meeting. “We’ve brought forward community partners, we’ve brought forward the legal research over the years, we’ve brought forward drafted policy.”
Contact the reporter at carsonmlnarik@gmail.com
