By Ray Gronberg
gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648
DURHAM -- City Council members voted 5-2 Monday night to support the Durham Police Department's practice of accepting the Mexican government's matricula consular as a valid form of identification.
The decision, capping about a year of off-and-on debate, came at the request of local activist groups and the Mexican consulate that represents that country's interests in the Carolinas.
But Mayor Bill Bell made it clear before the meeting started that he wouldn't have supported the resolution unless it also had backing from Police Chief Jose Lopez and City Manager Tom Bonfield.
He pressed the two during the meeting to go on the record with their views.
"I don't want any weaseling around," Bell told them.
Lopez said officers have been accepting the matricula throughout his tenure, and use tools supplied by the Mexican consulate to detect fakes.
He added that he saw the resolution as a confidence-builder with a local Hispanic community that's become more and more willing to cooperate with law enforcement.
"The significance is to garner trust from the community," he said.
Bonfield agreed, though he noted that the council could always rescind the vote if officials find later on that it causes problems.
But "I see much more positive potential from the adoption of this resolution than I do harm," the manager said.
The proposal, initially pushed by the Durham Bill of Rights Defense Committee, had attracted criticism from conservatives, both in town and out, largely because of the issue's tie to the broader immigration debate.
Critics contended that recognizing the card would only facilitate illegal immigration, and that the Mexican government itself is lax about verifying the identity of those who apply for one. The card is available only to Mexicans who live outside that country's borders.
But the opposition's case wasn't helped by a string of e-mails that Bell said were extreme to the point sometimes of being racist or "outright obscene."
Messages opposed to the resolution came in early on from states like California and Kentucky.
Even some of those arriving later from places closer to home weren't phrased in a way likely to persuade Durham council members, who preside over a city that regularly makes national best-places-to-live lists and has an economy that's stood up to the recession better than most.
"I live in Garner, N.C., and would love for more illegals to live in Durham," said an e-mailer who identified himself as Bruce Bell. "Eventually, they will become so [much of the] populace that you will be voted out and replaced with Mexican drug lords. Durham is already worthless. This act would just be more of the same."
"I honestly cannot even believe you are considering this," said another e-mailer, who gave his name as Quinten Adams. "Then again, this is Durham we are talking about. The city is a dump as it stands now; might as well take it to hell in a hand basket."
The vote came after eight or nine people staged a noisy walkout from the meeting hall. Local Republican Party leader Charlotte Woods said they were from a North Carolina-based group called Americans for Legal Immigration.
The group's walkout followed Mayor Bell's declaration that he'd only open the floor for public comment from residents of Durham. Participants heckled council members on the way out, to the point that a police officer stepped in to herd them toward the door.
The opposing votes on the resolution came from councilmen Eugene Brown and Howard Clement.
Brown said Durham officials should leave immigration matters to the federal government, and added that he thought the council was "simply being used to satisfy someone's political agenda."
Clement -- who earlier in the day turned aside pro-matricula lobbying from Durham County Libertarian Party Chairman Matt Drew -- said he agreed with opponents that the matricula's reliability was dubious.
He alluded to criticism of the document from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice.
But Lopez noted that the federal agencies' past criticism dated to 2003. "Today, it seems to be a different card," with better security measures, he said.
