NYC ID card for undocumented has cultural benefits

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

NEW YORK CITY — Municipal ID cards for undocumented immigrants living in this city, which will roll out on January 1, 2015, will include “cultural benefits” such as one-year free memberships in museums and other cultural institutions, the mayor’s office announced.

The card, dubbed NYC ID, will be made available to any city resident over age 14, regardless of immigration status. Other U.S. cities that issue similar cards, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Haven, Connecticut.

NYC ID is meant to help residents who don’t drive or have a driver’s license deal with the day-to-day tasks of cashing a check, signing a lease or entering office buildings for job interviews or public schools for parent-teacher conferences. The city is also negotiating with banks to honor the card as identification for opening accounts.

NYC ID card

“The municipal ID is a powerful tool to bring more New Yorkers out of the shadows and into the mainstream,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told the press. Some 500,000 immigrants live in the city without legal documentation. There are also senior citizens and homeless persons who lack legal identification.

Aside from being able to get library card or open a bank account, card holders can have one-year free membership at 33 of the city’s premier cultural institutions, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, the New York Botanical Garden, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Bronx Zoo and others.

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