The city is making it easier for potentially hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants to obtain a municipal residency ID card to help try to pave the way for everything from housing to free health care.
The Adams administration-backed change adds 23 types of lesser IDs that migrants and others can show to prove New York City residency to get the useful card.
For example, illegal migrants and others are now able to produce expired driver’s licenses and previous documents from ICE, the federal Bureau of Prisons and open cases with city departments such as for housing, in addition to 100 other types of IDs, to help obtain an IDNYC card.
The official city IDs were first offered by the de Blasio administration in 2015 to try to help migrants more easily access free health care in city public hospitals, open bank accounts, sign leases and enroll in school, among other things.
All New Yorkers 10 and older, “regardless of immigration status,” can apply for an IDNYC card, the city’s website says.
About 1.7 million people have received the special card to date, including 132,054 last year and 127,859 in 2023, the city says.
There are currently about 670,000 illegal migrants in New York, according to a study released in late January by the liberal-leaning Fiscal Policy Institute. The majority traditionally live in New York City.
Critics blasted the easing-up of access to IDNYC, saying it undermines federal immigration law and President Trump’s vow to enforce it.
“It’s a terrible idea,’’ Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Brooklyn/Staten Island) told The Post.
“To provide a legitimate government ID to individuals in the country illegally then gives them access to government buildings and services is just another incentive [to come here].
“Most disturbing is that there is no vetting, no process to ensure documents provided to prove identity are not fake and, to boot, they destroy these documents that could be helpful in an investigation,” said the rep, who futilely sued the de Blasio administration to try to get access to the data to root out illegal migrants.
The city is only required to turn over information gleaned from the program if served with a court warrant.
Steven Camarota, director of research with the Center for Immigration Studies, said the program “creates a fig leaf of legitimacy so you can undermine federal immigration law.
“The ID card is for people who are illegally in the country. It’s to make life more convenient for people who are illegally in the country,” he said.
The issue could draw the ire of GOPers when Adams testifies about immigration before Congress as scheduled Wednesday.
The embattled Democratic mayor has been a friend to Republicans on immigration, decrying liberal Dem border policies that have flooded the city with migrants in the past few years.
Mayoral critics have claimed his cozying up to the GOP Trump administration on such issues is what helped win him a reprieve from the Justice Department involving the bribery case against him. Adams has denied any such quid pro quo.
Big Apple officials told The Post that the changes had been in the works for some time and that the recent public posting of the new rules is simply dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s for a law already in place thanks to the City Council.
A public hearing on the social-services changes will be held March 28 to see if anything needs to be tweaked, officials said.
“The New York City Identification Card Program (“IDNYC Card Program”) was established to ensure that New Yorkers are provided with the opportunity and peace of mind that come with possessing a government-issued photo identification,” the city Human Resources Administration said in posting its rules change.
“To date, the program has enrolled approximately 1.7 million individuals. In an ongoing effort to serve New York’s most vulnerable populations, IDNYC further seeks to expand and refine the number and types of reliable and verifiable documents that can be accepted as proof of identity and residency.”
“Over the past several years, the Department of Social Services has worked with the New York City Council, key stakeholders, and advocates on their recommendations for updates to IDNYC – many of these changes are already in place,” a Department of Social Service rep said.
“This rule change simply codifies local law changes that were enacted by the City Council in 2023 [Local Law 156], and recommendations to make it easier for more individuals —including taxi drivers, students applying for the Summer Youth Employment Program, and immigrants — to apply for IDNYC.”
City officials emphasize the importance of strengthening access for “vulnerable New Yorkers who rely on this critical ID to obtain self-sufficiency” and dismissed criticism aimed at undermining the program.
Recent data show the migrant crisis that enveloped the city in 2022 through early 2024 has receded. The number of asylum seekers entering the city’s care plummeting nearly 200% since the crisis’ peak.
The notorious migrant shelter and arrival center at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel will close in a couple of months, Adams announced last week. Dozens of other shelters have closed as well.
The number of migrants in the city’s care has dropped from 69,000 to 45,000.
At its peak, some 4,000 migrants arrived in the city per week. That number gradually dropped to 1,500 per week last April to 600 in November, 400 in January to 200 in February.
