Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday launched a municipal ID card for people in the country illegally and other Chicagoans, a key piece of outreach to Hispanic voters and others opposed to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Starting Monday, the IDs will be available at Kennedy-King College in Englewood, the first location where people can get them, and other neighborhood spots will have the IDs after that. The cards also will be available by appointment at the city clerk’s office at City Hall next week on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and semiregularly after that, as the office also ramps up city sticker sales.

By finally offering the card after touting it for years, Emanuel heads into his re-election campaign able to say he tried to help people who have trouble getting traditional state identification in a city where Trump is widely unpopular.

But the new ID also has become a flashpoint in the immigration debate. Some African-Americans on the City Council contended their majority-black wards didn’t see the need for the city to create a card to help immigrants. And conservatives have opposed the cards, saying the program could lead to vote fraud. On Thursday, Emanuel called that argument “a red herring.”

“Undocumented (people) cannot vote, and that’s clear policy,” Emanuel said as he left the launch event, which was held in front of the display of one elephant goring another at the Field Museum. “This is not about that. This is about accessing the benefits.”

The mayor also acknowledged the cards won’t be a success unless lots of people get them and use them. The first 100,000 will be given out free. After that, cards will be $10 for adults, $5 for minors and free for residents 65 and older. Cardholders will be able to access many city services and can use the card to get married and file a police report, and to bank at a couple of financial institutions, according to City Clerk Anna Valencia’s office.

“Take a victory lap, but we’ve got to get back to work, because it’s not good if it’s just an ID card sitting on the shelf (that) they’re not accessing,” Emanuel said during the event.

The success of the program could now rest in part on how comfortable immigrants living in the U.S. illegally feel about applying for the cards. Valencia says her office will not keep any personal information of applicants on file, so federal immigration agents won’t be able to acquire the data and use it to track people down.

That’s a move to avoid the situation in New York, where Republican state lawmakers sued to try to stop the city from destroying the personal information of municipal ID applicants. A judge eventually ruled that Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s administration could get rid of the data.

In yet another attempt to make the cards attractive to Chicagoans beyond immigrants, homeless people and domestic violence victims, Emanuel said cardholders will be able to get into the Field Museum for free once per year, on a day of their choosing.

He and Valencia have been teasing new benefits for months, most recently requesting bids from firms to offer prescription drug discounts to cardholders. The cards also can double as CTA fare cards and library cards and will offer discounts at some theaters, restaurants and sporting events.

Emanuel has been pushing the ID since 2016. It passed the City Council easily in 2017, but not without resistance from a handful of aldermen. Some African-American council members argued it was a misapplication of funds, and a couple of white aldermen representing bungalow belt Northwest Side neighborhoods have also questioned why the city is seeking to help people in the country illegally.

They have been particularly upset about the fact the cards will be valid identification for people both registering to vote and voting in Chicago, contending it opens the door to possible vote fraud.

During her unsuccessful primary campaign for governor, Republican state Rep. Jeanne Ives accused Emanuel of “literally suborning voter fraud” with the city ID cards.

Valencia’s office has pointed out that prospective voters in Illinois are not required to prove their citizenship, and she noted that the municipal ID will be added to a long list of forms of identification they already can use to prove their residency.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne