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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Immigrants Fight Texas’ Birth Certificate Rules Immigrants Fight Texas’ Birth Certificate Rules A 40-year-old woman with her daughter; both are plaintiffs in a lawsuit. Texas says its rules are an issue of providing proper ID. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times By MANNY FERNANDEZ September 17, 2015 McALLEN, Tex. — At the Republican debate on Wednesday and throughout the campaign, candidates led by Donald J. Trump have assailed illegal immigration, and some have questioned whether children who are born to immigrants in this country illegally should be considered American citizens. But here on the Texas border some local officials are engaged in activities that go beyond talk, enforcing some of the toughest rules in the country limiting the types of ID parents can show to receive copies of birth certificates. The result has been a refusal to issue birth certificates to many of the Texas-born children of immigrants here illegally. Texas has not directly challenged the citizenship of the children, which is granted by the 14th Amendment to anyone born in the United States. Many of them have birth certificates in the state’s database. It is just a matter of adequate identification, the state says. Organizations that work on behalf of immigrants suspect that nativist sentiments are being turned into nativist policies, with the goal of making it harder for people in the country illegally to live and raise families in Texas. An immigrant and her 2-year-old are plaintiffs in a lawsuit over Texas birth certificates. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times Without a birth certificate, illegal immigrants say they cannot have newborns baptized, have had difficulty enrolling their children in day care and school and have lost or fear losing Medicaid coverage and other government services and benefits for their families. They said officials required birth certificates for these programs, as proof of parenthood or the child’s Texas birth. Some have older children who have birth certificates but younger children who do not, because local registrars who used to accept certain types of identification issued abroad no longer do. “It’s not right,” said a 34-year-old woman who was denied birth certificates for two of her children in McAllen, and who asked that her name not be used because she feared reprisals from the authorities. “Yes, I’m here illegally. But I’m the one who committed the crime, not them.” In court papers, lawyers for Texas disputed some of the claims made by those denied birth certificates, arguing that not having a copy of a birth certificate does not prevent a child from attending school or qualifying for Medicaid. And they say state policies do not discriminate against immigrants but are meant to ensure that birth records do not fall into the wrong hands. A 2-year-old Texas girl who was born in the United States. Her parents cannot get her birth certificate, and are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times “Vital records contain private information that is confidential by law,” said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which oversees the state’s Vital Statistics Unit. “State and local registrars have a duty to protect that information by ensuring they only release records to people who are qualified to obtain them.” Most Texans pick up a birth certificate by showing a driver’s license. But illegal immigrants lack many of the approved forms of identification, such as a license or foreign passport with a United States visa. Illegal immigrants and their lawyers said local Texas registrars used to accept an ID card with a photograph issued to an immigrant by a foreign consulate. The matrícula, as the Mexican version of the consular ID is known, has been used by illegal immigrants to open bank accounts in Texas and receive other services. Although official Texas policy prohibited the use of consular IDs to obtain birth certificates, the prohibition was not strictly enforced until about 2013, when state officials in Austin began pressing local records clerks to follow the protocols, immigration lawyers said. “People in Austin started tightening the screws,” said Efrén C. Olivares, a lawyer with the South Texas Civil Rights Project who represents the parents in the lawsuit. The refusal to accept the consular IDs coincided with the tough-on-immigration stance of Texas Republican leaders, the influx of Central American immigrants at the border last summer and the state’s opposition to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, which would give temporary reprieves from deportation to as many as four million immigrants and also permit them to work. Illegal immigrants and their lawyers said Texas officials had been intentionally requiring IDs unavailable to them as part of their efforts to bolster border security. One couple who were denied a birth certificate for their 6-month-old daughter say in court documents that they were told by a McAllen official that the requirements became more strict to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining legal status through their American-born children. Mr. Obama’s executive actions on immigration, announced in November, would offer three-year deportation deferrals and work permits to millions of unauthorized immigrants who have a child who is an American citizen or legal permanent resident, and who have been living in the United States for five years and have no serious criminal records. Texas officials say that immigration status plays no role in determining who is supplied a birth certificate. They say that the consular ID cards are not secure because the consulate offices do not verify the documents presented to obtain them, and that immigrants can use other types of identification to receive copies of birth certificates. The list includes student IDs, Medicaid cards, Mexican voter registrations, utility bills and paycheck stubs. Mr. Van Deusen of the state health services department said the agency had never accepted consular IDs, but he suggested that local registrars had allowed them in the past without the state’s approval. “We can’t speak to what the practices of each of the more than 450 local registrars have been over the years,” he said in a statement. “If we’ve encountered a local registrar that was accepting consular IDs, we’ve asked him or her to stop and explained why.” Illegal immigrants in other states do not appear to have had similar problems with birth certificates. New Mexico accepts the consular ID cards that Texas prohibits. California officials said they did not have any policies on the use of consular IDs to obtain birth certificates. Although Arizona does not accept consular IDs, officials there said they work with those who lack valid ID, including allowing witnesses who know the parent and who have proper ID to take part in the application process. In Nevada, one of the accepted IDs is a hospital birth record, which many of the Texas families have but the state does not accept. “There’s no other state that has locked people out the way Texas has,” said Jennifer K. Harbury, a lawyer with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid who is representing the children in the lawsuit. Plaintiffs in the suit are about two dozen families from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. The number has grown since the suit was first filed in May and now includes 28 adults and 32 children. The lawyers for the families said there were hundreds and possibly thousands of others who had been denied birth certificates. “We’ve had people who’ve come to us asking for help, but they didn’t want to join the lawsuit because they’re afraid,” Mr. Olivares said. “They don’t want the potential repercussions of coming out publicly as undocumented.” One 40-year-old illegal immigrant who was denied a birth certificate for her 9-month-old daughter said she could not work as a result: Day care centers want a birth certificate, so she remains unemployed because she has no one to watch the baby. She and other illegal immigrants said they now limit their travels because they lack a birth certificate. If they drive north, they have to pass inland Border Patrol checkpoints, and they fear being separated from their children because they lack proof they are the parents. Mexico filed a brief in support of the parents suing Texas, with its lawyers calling the state’s actions a violation of international law that introduces “a troublesome and discordant element into binational or transnational relations.” Gov. Greg Abbott expected to discuss the issue with Mexican officials this month during his visit to Mexico City, but the topic did not come up, a spokesman for the governor said. “One thing both sides understand is that the Texas-Mexico relationship is bigger than any one issue,” said the spokesman, John Wittman. Poster Comment: The greatest scam in the world is for illegal immigrants to give birth to their children in this country, which automatically makes them citizens. It is a great problem that will take time to sort out. ;) Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
thenewamerican.com Friday, 28 August 2015: Mexican Government Files Brief in Case Demanding Birth Certificates for Anchor Babies The “anchor babies,” whom Mexico and the plaintiffs complain are being denied birth certificates, therefore, are obviously Mexican nationals in whom Mexico has interests and a responsibility to protect. ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
MX - take your sweet little beaner babies back home and give them BCs there. No problema. “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
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