Immigrant proposal could curb youth drinking

01/04/2006

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

By Don Davis
Capitol Reporter
Bemidji Pioneer


ST. PAUL - Cracking down on illegal immigrants could have a side benefit - slowing under-age drinking by drying up false identification documents.

That is good news for some who fight youth alcohol use.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Tuesday proposed a series of actions that he wants to take against illegal immigrants. They include getting tough on false IDs possessing one would be a gross misdemeanor and creating or obtaining a false document would be a felony.

Under current Minnesota law, it is illegal to possess a false ID with the intention of using it to commit a crime. Pawlenty’s proposal would make it easier to convict someone of an ID infraction.

“Under-age folks are able to purchase alcohol with false IDs all too often,” Rep. Morrie Lanning, R-Moorhead, said. “So anything that would help us curb the production of false IDs for alcohol purchases by under-age folks is a step in the right direction.”

Lanning was the main promoter of a new law that delays when youths turning 21 can legally drink alcohol, a response to several college drinking incidents in Moorhead and Fargo.

But not everyone thinks Pawlenty’s ID proposal is the answer to under-age drinking.

It is like “taking a bazooka out to shoot mosquitoes,” said Rep. Paul Marquart, DFL-Dilworth.

While he agrees with Pawlenty’s overall goal of cracking down on illegal immigrants, Marquart said a teen-ager trying to buy beer with a false ID is different than dealing with illegal immigrants or terrorists with fake papers.

“We need to use the proper correlation of what we are trying to deal with,” he said.