Wary of Trump immigration threat, NY may erase ID card data
When New York City launched the nation’s biggest municipal ID card program last year, advocates said it would help people living in the U.S. illegally to venture out of the shadows.
But since Donald Trump was elected president, city officials are instead fielding questions about whether the cards could put those same people at greater risk of being deported.
The city has vowed to protect cardholders’ personal records and might even delete them using a kind of self-destruct provision that allows for the information to be destroyed at the end of the year. At least one state lawmaker has criticized that idea, saying it could make it impossible to trace people if they have obtained cards fraudulently.