6,000 New Yorkers Enroll For Municipal ID In First Week

Nearly 6,000 New Yorkers had municipal ID cards in hand within a week of the ID NYC program’s launch, the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs said Friday. 

The de Blasio administration said that as of 3 p.m., 5968 ID cards had been issued, while 58,065 New York City residents had scheduled appointments to obtain the cards, meaning the program is well on its way toward enrolling 100,000 residents within the first year. Officials said 17,543 of those appointments were scheduled on Friday.  

Tabloids were quick to criticize the city’s rollout of ID NYC—a program designed to provide government identification for undocumented immigrants and the homeless—comparing 311 scheduling delays, issues with an ID NYC website and the lack of readily available appointments to Obamacare’s botched beginnings.

But Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Nisha Agarwal said she was pleased that the ID had proven so popular since it became available Monday.

“We are energized by this amazing response, and are working to rapidly increase our capacity to book appointments and process applications—New Yorkers will see significant improvements in the next few days,” Agarwal said in a statement. “We built a system that could expand and were prepared to deploy extra staff in the event of high demand.”

A city official disputed reports that the ID NYC scheduling website hosted by AppointmentPlus crashed, saying a surge in demand slowed it down and that the administration overcame delays by directing AppointmentPlus to increase the site’s capacity.

The official noted a backup scheduling method for the card was available via 311. Nearly hour long holds on 311 had been brought down to an average of 4 minutes as of 3 p.m. Friday, the official said. All New Yorkers are welcome to sign up.

The city has also reassigned dozens of staff to the ID initiative, added work stations at 17 existing enrollment sites and planned to open two additional intake centers shortly—one at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City and another at the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park.

UPDATE: As of 5 p.m. Friday, city officials said 6,145 municipal IDs had been issued and 60,786 apppintments booked. The wait time for 311 was down to 3 minutes and 21 seconds.