With little fanfare, legislation creating a national identification card became law last spring, slipping by as part of a must-pass war appropriations bill. In the largest local outcry since its passage, dozens of immigrants, religious and labor groups took to the sidewalk yesterday in front of Governor Pataki’s office in Manhattan. The protesters demanded that Albany take a stance against one of the more contentious aspects of the law: that illegal immigrants are barred from getting driver’s licenses.

It’s the latest chapter in an increasingly fervent debate in New York about illegal immigrants’ rights. Supporters, headed by the state Department of Motor Vehicles and some particularly vocal families of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks, say granting them licenses poses a national security risk. Critics say denying the licenses will in fact make the nation less safe because many of the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants will then drive without licenses.

The governor has not yet said how New York will implement the new legislation, known as the Real ID Act, which requires states to comply with new national driver’s license requirements by 2008 or risk losing federal funding. “We will work to reach an appropriate balance that protects the rights of individuals and protects the security of all New Yorkers,” a spokesman for Governor Pataki, Saleem Cheeks, said.

Prior to the Real ID Act, states created their own rules on granting licenses to illegal immigrants. For years, New York has been among the minority of states in which illegal immigrants enjoyed the privilege of driving.

In 2002, however,as part of an attempt to tighten security following the September 11 attacks, the Department of Motor Vehicles began to check its records against a national database of Social Security numbers. Of 11.5 million New York licenses, 600,000 were obtained with repeat or nonexistent numbers. Of those, 252,000, most of whom are thought to be illegal immigrants, did not respond to a letter warning their licenses would be suspended and could not be renewed.

In May, a judge ruled that the DMV’s action was illegal and that it had overstepped its jurisdiction. The agency immediately appealed, and the decision has been suspended pending the next ruling. Since then, according to the DMV, there have been no additional license suspensions.

At yesterday’s protest, Patricio, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador with two small children, said his family’s fortune had taken a turn for the worse since the DMV warned his license would be suspended. Afraid he could be arrested by the police and deported, Patricio, 32, quit his job as a gypsy cab driver in the Bronx. He now works as a painter and earns much less. He worries about his wife, who cleans offices at night and now must walk to the subway alone at midnight because he can no longer drive her.

Others, he said, have continued to drive illegally or bought fake licenses on the black market. Assemblyman Jose Peralta, whose Queens district is 60% foreign-born, said he has seen the Roosevelt Avenue market in false identification boom since the driver’s license sweep.

“They’re going to continue to drive,” the assemblyman, who has introduced legislation that would grant licenses to illegal immigrants, said. “What’s going to happen is everyone’s insurance rates are going to go up and there is going to be identity-theft problems.”