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The new and improved matricula consular
We’ve all heard of the strange, postmodern ID card known as the matricula consular. This is an identity card given out by Mexican consulates in the U.S. to Mexican illegal aliens which identify the carrier as a Mexican citizen. The card says nothing about the carrier’s legal or illegal status in the U.S. (though, by the fact of his carrying it, he is self-evidently an illegal alien because only illegal aliens have use for it). The card simply says that the carrier is Mexican, which is odd, since, given that he’s a Mexican, he surely has other ID cards showing his nationality. Nevertheless, numerous institutions in the U.S., such as state motor vehicle bureaus and banks, recognize the matricula consular as a valid ID for doing business in the U.S. The logic of this is impossible for an ordinary human mind to grasp. It is as if an illegal alien went to a state motor vehicle bureau and announced, “I am an illegal alien from Mexico, I would like to get a driver’s license,” and they proceeded to give him one. The recognition of the matricula consular as “valid ID” (I love that phrase—a valid ID of what? of one’s Mexican citizenship) for doing business in the U.S. is one of those things that tell you that when national borders are despised, disregarded, and broken down, all boundaries and distinctions start to break down, even those of rationality itself.
Anyway, as I’ve been following the current immigration debate, it occurred to me that the U.S. government and other pro-alien institutions and businesses realized that the matricula consular just wouldn’t fly as a way of getting illegals accepted and functioning in the U.S., because its irrationality and senselessness are just too blatant—it creates too much resentment on the part of ordinary Americans. So our leaders came up with a brilliantly devised substitute for the matricula consular, an ID that would seem more plausible, though at bottom it is equally specious. And this is the Z visa, the centerpiece of the legalization provisions in the Kennedy-Bush immigration bill. Instead of being issued by the Mexican government, the Z visa is issued by the U.S. government. Instead of conveying the information that the holder is an illegal alien in the U.S., which for some unfathomable reason is taken as meaning that the holder has legal status in the U.S., the Z visa states forthrightly and officially that the holder has legal status in the U.S. The Z visa gets illegal aliens accepted in America without producing the cognitive dissonance that is attendant on the use of the matricula consular. But the essence of the two cards is the same: a person who is in fact an illegal alien is treated as though he were legally present in this country. Email entry |