Immigration status should not determine if someone is an American. Many people will not contest Pulitzer Prize recipient, reporter, journalist, and immigration activist Jose Antonio Vargas’s interpretation of what it means to be an American: hard working, living the American dream, and thinking of America as home. For immigrants, the American dream is a chance for a better life with more opportunities. Vargas’s story in the New York Times magazine shows how his status as an undocumented immigrant has forced him and his family to wonder if his dream of pursuing journalism was dangerous because he was “dreaming too big, risking too much”. Vargas is an American in every way but one: in documentation. For the past decade, immigration status has become a controversial political issue that forces governments, especially local governments to act. Opportunities for undocumented immigrants to pursue the American dream are limited but make a big difference.

In January 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City (NYC) started its “IDNYC” program, allowing at-risk populations, especially undocumented immigrants, living in NYC to apply for a free municipal identification card. The program highlights the bare minimum of what governments can do by providing a form of documentation that makes the American dream more possible and accessible for undocumented people. NYC’s ID program is eliminating barriers and is now the nation’s largest municipal ID program that has the potential to serve the 500,000 undocumented people residing in NYC. Critics, like former Florida Representative Allen West, fear an increase of terrorist activity in NYC as a result of the ID program. But what about the terror that already exists in NYC and America? Let’s not forget that undocumented people have fled to America because of the dangers they were experiencing elsewhere, or for the opportunities to improve their lives and their family’s lives. Only, when they flee to America, they find another danger that awaits them. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines terrorism as “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal”. The constant threat of arrest, detainment, and deportation is how terror is inflicted on undocumented people. Law enforcement and governments are actively participating in the terrorization of undocumented people but ID programs have the ability to limit this terror.

NYC is not the first city to create this ID program. In Connecticut, the city of New Haven started the first municipal ID program in July 2007. In 2009, San Francisco started a similar municipal ID program. Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. soon followed. These ID programs were established to improve residents’ general welfare in their cities. In the United States, hundreds of undocumented people are in danger because of political debate about immigration status and its widespread criminalization, which impedes on the American dream. But NYC’s ID program has power to influence other cities to act. The “IDNYC” program requires numerous documents to prove residency and identity in NYC, limiting the chances of the program being used by non-residents for the purpose of inflicting terror. In terms of costs, the “IDNYC” program budget is approximately $8.4 million but there are approximately 8.4 million residents in NYC so the costs are not as extensive as they sound. In addition, the costs of the program are predicted to decrease. Undocumented immigrants also pay taxes and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates that as of 2013, undocumented immigrants in New York City and New York State have paid $744 million in taxes.

The ID program increases the safety and participation of undocumented people in NYC by creating a platform for them to gain legal access into everyday New Yorker type situations, ranging from interactions with the New York Police Department and entry into a public school for parents to pick up their children, to the purchase of a medical prescription. The municipal city ID programs are designed to help undocumented people and other at-risk communities become members of their city and approach visibility, without fear or consequence, by leaving the shadows.

This post was written by a student enrolled in the Capstone Seminar course in the undergraduate program in public policy at Hunter College. Any opinions expressed here are solely those of the student.