San Antonio subverting immigration law; Senator Perry calls it fraudulent

A division of the City of San Antonio is issuing photo identification to people who are in this country illegally and doing so with no substantive background check to ensure such people are not a threat to public safety. In fact it appears that it is so easy to obtain one of these photo IDs, free by the way, that a felon could simply claim to be someone else and get a new ID to bolster a false identity.

In a story in the Hearst-owned San Antonio Express-News, the main subject of the story, who has been living and working in the Alamo city illegally for years, said the ID even allowed her “to gain admission to Universal Orlando Resort in Florida.”

Clearly the San Antonio Public Library’s “enhanced library card” which is complete with a person’s (presumed) name, photo, address, date of birth, and phone number is taken by many as a government issued ID in practical use – which it is, given that the library is a unit of the City of San Antonio.

Sen. Charles Perry

In 2017 many members of the Texas legislature, none more that Senator Charles Perry, fought hard to pass Senate Bill 4, called the Sanctuary Cities Bill, to stop local governments in Texas from refusing to cooperate with federal agencies in the enforcement of immigration law.

The Left and its propaganda organs, most of the Texas working press, deemed the Act the “show me your papers” law simply because it clarified that a licensed peace officer in Texas is allowed to inquire about an individual’s legal immigration status during a traffic stop or other probable cause encounter.

2017’s S.B. 4 was a clear message to local government in Texas that the policy of the state is not to subvert or undermine immigration law either through action or inaction.

The entire point of the Express-News story lauding the photo ID given out by San Antonio’s city library is that it gave a person living in Texas illegally an effective means of avoiding detection during a traffic stop for driving with an expired driver license.

“Andrea Osorio, who immigrated [illegally] to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 14, was able to use a library card to establish her identity during a traffic stop. ‘I can literally say it saved my life. It saved me from being deported that day,’” the story reported.

In an exclusive statement to Pratt on Texas, the author of S.B. 4, state Senator Charles Perry wrote:

“SB4 – Sanctuary City legislation passed in 2017 made it clear that local political subdivisions were not to subvert federal and state immigration laws.  The approved list of government documents that allow for voter ID, proof of citizenship, and other uses are vetted through various processes to insure the validity of the documents.  The “cute” attempt to create and use a library card will not stand and those pushing the card as legitimate will find themselves in violation of SB4 and other laws in regards to creating documents being passed off as legitimate official government documents.  In a word, it is FRAUD and the Texas Attorney General, as well as the Texas legislature will take an aggressive posture to insure integrity in our ID system in Texas.”

According to the Express-News report, San Antonio’s public library began offering the “enhanced library card” in November of 2020 and developed it in cooperation with Democrat and Leftist front group Texas Organizing Project and the city-backed Stand Up SA.

The paper reports that the library card photo ID is “currently is accepted only by the San Antonio Police Department, but Stand Up SA and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center are trying to get other entities, including CPS Energy, on board as well.”

These San Antonio librarians, who seem to have no idea of why the Real ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005, are leading other Texas cities down this same dangerous road. The Express-News story reports that “counterparts in major Texas cities have expressed interest in following suit. Both Dallas and Austin may soon offer enhanced library cards of their own.”

Not only are a bunch of librarians, in cahoots with a major Leftwing political entity, issuing photo IDs to people that are official looking enough to be considered authentic identification in practical usage, an odd enough situation that seems to call for outside intervention to stop such, they are doing so specifically to help people residing in our country illegally avoid detection. And worse, they are providing a pathway for those set on using false identification for nefarious purposes, such as felons, traffickers, and terrorists, an easy way to begin the creation of a strong false identity, or legend.