Opinion: Identifying illegal immigrants: good news and tepid news

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In a nearly unanimous vote supprted by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors okayed granting municipal identification cards to any resident, regardless of legal status. The author of the measure, Supervisor Tom Ammiano, says it will encourage undocumented immigrants to report crimes and access banking services.

On the other side of the country, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer nixed his plan to allow illegal immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses. The decision comes after Spitzer revised the plan into a tiered system, that, as The New York Times notes, ‘pleased almost no one.’ It didn’t sit well with the Times editorial board either; maybe in this case, no plan is better than a bad one.