The Elm City Resident Card is an identification (ID) card used in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The card was originally designed to protect the estimated 10,000 to 15,000

undocumented immigrant Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...

s in New Haven from being robbed or assaulted. All city residents can receive the card, which serves as a form of identification, debit card with a capacity of $150,

library card A library card can refer to several cards traditionally used for the management of books and patrons in a library. In its most common use, a library card serves similar functions as a corporate membership card. A person who holds a library card ...

, and a way to pay for parking meters. The cards were first issued in July 2007, and were the first

municipal identification card In the United States, a city (or municipal) identification card is a form of identification card issued by a municipality, such as a city, rather than a state or federal government. Under federal law, cities may issue their own identification car ...

s issued in the United States. The card costs $5 for children or $10 for adults.

Background

Illegal immigration, especially from

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and other

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

n countries, has been a controversial political issue in the US for many years. Undocumented immigrants in New Haven were often targets of robbery, and sometimes murder because they were less likely to go to

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...

due to their immigration status. It is also harder for undocumented immigrants to get bank accounts, causing some to carry around larger sums of cash. New Haven has historically had a favorable policy toward immigrants. In December 2006, the New Haven police instituted a policy of not asking crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status, unless they were suspected of being involved in a crime - the first policy of its kind in Connecticut.

Planning

Municipal ID cards were first proposed in 2005, as the result of a study conducted by Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) a New Haven-based grassroots social justice organization. ULA is a leading member of the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance, a statewide coalition including immigrant, faith, labor, civil rights and human service organizations. Junta for Progressive Action, an advocacy group, and

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

students. The proposal received a positive reaction, but was not adopted. Then, in December 2006, the mayor of New Haven, John DeStefano, Jr., announced that he was reviving the plan. The city then redrafted plans, and in May 2007 unveiled the new Elm City Resident Card that has multiple uses, so that it would be useful to all residents of New Haven.

Approval

On 4 June 2007, New Haven

aldermen An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members the ...

voted 25-1 in favor of accepting $250,359 in private funds from the First City Fund Corporation to fund the Elm City Resident Card.

Aftermath

Immigration raid

Two days after the card was unveiled in 2007,

Immigration and Customs Enforcement The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration th ...

agents arrested 32 illegal immigrants in the city.

Immigration office raid

In December 2007, 6 months after the plan was approved, federal agents from the

Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

raided the offices of the Community Action Agency of New Haven with a warrant for all documents from 2003 onward. The agents asked whether they had been given instructions about giving aid to illegal immigrants.

Other municipal ID cards

On January 15, 2009, the city/county of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

launched the SF City ID Card, a municipal identification card program modeled after New Haven's. New York canceled a plan to issue driver's licenses for illegal immigrants after strong opposition.

Opposition

Just before the ID cards were approved, two groups -

Danbury Danbury is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2022 was 87,642. It is the seventh largest city in Connecticut. Danbury is nicknamed the "Hat City ...

-based Citizens for Immigration Control and the North Branford-based Southern Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Reform - wrote and distributed flyers around New Haven criticizing the Card. The Southern Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Reform have also criticized the plan as hurting New Haven's workers who are legal residents. Other critics argue that it will entice illegal immigration and undermine border security. In early 2008, opponents filed a

Freedom of Information request Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments and, where applicable, by state and local governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatisfa ...

to make public the names, addresses and photos of everyone who has an ID card. On June 25, 2008, Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission upheld the city's decision to reject this request and protect the privacy and safety of holders of the Elm City ID.

References

{{reflist Identity documents of the United States Identity documents of country subdivisions Illegal immigration to the United States Political controversies in the United States