If you're an illegal immigrant you can't even get arrested in this town. Really, the LAPD won't arrest you for simply being undocumented.

But soon you'll be able to get an ID card issued by the city.

The L.A. City Council this week voted 12-1 to get the program started by requesting proposals from banks or other vendors who could make it happen. Banks?

Yeah, a big part of the idea is combine a city library card with a debit card for a class of folks — illegals, homeless — who can't easily get credit and bank cards.

The concept was championed by Councilman Richard Alarcon, who said, according to City News Service, that it would help move L.A.'s 400,000-plus undocumenteds “out of the shadows … into the true light of day.''

What the hell, you say: Illegal is illegal. It's true. We'd much rather not know they exist. And, hell, with all that housekeeping money they should be able to live life in cash anyway.

But the reality is, they're an integral art of our society, from car washers to high-tech sandwich technicians.

Alarcon (sounding strangely like this here Weekly writer):

We ask them to landscape our houses, take care of our kids, prepare our food for us in restaurants … and everybody knows it. Yet we don't want them to say who they are and what their address is.

The council was staff to report back in 90 days on how the process is moving along. City Councilman Mitch Englander, by the way, represented the lone no vote. He mows his own damn lawn.

[With reporting from City News Service / @dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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