Hiram Ramirez, 28, was denied a birth certificate for her newborn daughter, Dulce, in McAllen.

She
is seen with her husband, Eduardo Mendo, 41, and daughters Alejandra, 3, and Esli, 14

Immigrant parents say Texas is improperly denying birth certificates to U.S.-born children...
'Hundreds, and possibly thousands' of immigrant parents are turned down
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, LOS ANGELES TIMES
July 18, 2015

McALLEN - Hiram Ramirez didn't expect problems when she went to get a birth
certificate for her newborn daughter, Dulce.

Ramirez, 28, a native of neighboring Reynosa, Mexico, crossed the border illegally
and has lived in the Rio Grande Valley for years. Her two older daughters, ages 3 and
14, were U.S.-born, and she easily obtained birth certificates for them using her
Mexican voter registration and consular identification card.
She relied on the birth certificates to register her girls for school, Medicaid and other
government services.
But when the stay-at-home mother arrived at the downtown vital statistics office
Thursday, she discovered the rules had changed. Without a U.S. driver's license, visa
or Mexican electoral card, she could not obtain a birth certificate for her child.
Though children born in the United States are entitled by law to U.S. citizenship
regardless of the immigration status of their parents, Texas authorities have begun
placing significant barriers to undocumented immigrants seeking to obtain birth
certificates for their U.S.-born children.

Hundreds of immigrant parents along the southern Texas border have been denied
birth certificates for U.S.-born children since 2013, immigrant advocates say, as state
authorities have made it more difficult to use alternative identification documents
from parents who have no access to U.S.-issued papers.
Officals reluctant
The denials have happened in the past but stepped up significantly after the Obama
administration in 2012 expanded its efforts to protect millions of immigrants from
deportation, according to lawyers who have filed a lawsuit arguing that the Texas
policy is unconstitutional. A second program, proposed by the White House in 2014,
would extend deportation protection in some cases to parents of children born in the
U.S.
"As a result of this situation, hundreds, and possibly thousands, of parents from
Mexico and Central America have recently been denied birth certificates for their
Texas-born children," said the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Austin.
State officials say they have always been reluctant to use identity documents that are
not backed up with reliable forms of identification.
"We monitor local registrars for compliance. If we encounter a local registrar that is
accepting identification that doesn't qualify, we'll let them know," said Chris Van
Deusen, spokesman for the Department of State Health Services, which supervises the
roughly 400 local registrars around the state that issue birth certificates.
'It's not fair'
At issue is a state policy, which immigrant advocates say has been enforced with
greater vigor since 2013, declaring that state registrars cannot accept the identification
cards, popularly known as matriculas, issued to foreign nationals by their local
consulates.

This was a crucial decision because many immigrants in the country illegally - many
of whom did not bring official identification cards issued in their home countries, or
had them stolen along the way - do not have the level of identification that is now
required in Texas.
"It says we need a U.S. license we don't have; a (Mexican) passport we have, but with
a visa we don't have; voter ID card I have, but it expired," Ramirez said as she cradled
her youngest child, dressed in a pink onesie, on her lap. "It's not fair. She has a right to
her birth certificate. What are we supposed to do?"
The 14th Amendment guarantees the right to citizenship for children born on U.S.
soil, part of the fabric of a nation of immigrants. The lawsuit filed in May names 19
parents of 23 children who were denied birth certificates in the Rio Grande Valley,
alleging the refusals are an unconstitutional, discriminatory political tactic and
demanding that a judge force the state to comply with federal law.
Attorneys representing the parents - immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and
Mexico - said the state has used identification requirements as a means of combating
the Obama administration's more liberal immigration policy at a time when the state is
facing a major influx of new immigrants.
Three-fourths of the more than 55,000 families who surged into the U.S. from Central
America last year crossed into the Rio Grande Valley.
"As immigration became more controversial, they just started clamping down," said
lead attorney Jennifer Harbury of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.
Two state lawmakers this month demanded that the Texas department responsible for
issuing birth certificates correct the problem.

Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat, said the policy is creating a
"critical disadvantage" for children who have a right to access medical care, travel,
school enrollment and other benefits available to U.S. citizens.
"These children were born in the United States, are United States citizens and are
entitled to receive their own birth certificates," he said in a statement.
'Would be disastrous'
In California, immigrant parents routinely use the matricula card to obtain birth
certificates, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane
Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
If state officials stopped accepting it, he said, "it would be disastrous. The banks,
organizations, even the (Department of Motor Vehicles) use those matriculas now. It's
become an integral part of doing business with immigrants, both documented and
undocumented."
In Arizona, lawmakers have failed in recent years to pass several proposals that would
have denied or restricted birth certificates to children born to immigrants who entered
the country illegally.
Harbury sees the denials in Texas as part of a larger backlash by Republican state
leaders against President Barack Obama's 2012 executive action on immigration,
which would shield from deportation millions of parents of American children who
crossed the border illegally. Texas and 25 other states have sued to block the
president's programs, arguing before an appeals court this month that they impose
added state costs.
"Once immigration became an issue they just closed the door, and now it's locked and
bolted," Harbury said.

Texas officials admit they have refused some of the immigrant parents' documents,
but contend that they followed state law.
Van Deusen, the health services department spokesman, said that officials provide
birth certificates "without regard to the requestor's immigration status," but that they
don't accept consular identification cards because underlying documents "are not
verified by the issuing party."
"Several other states and some federal agencies also do not accept the matricula as a
valid form of identification for the same reason," Van Deusen said.
In McAllen, City Secretary Annette Villarreal said that she was simply enforcing a
state directive.
"Until a few years ago we would accept the matricula consular, but the state came
down on us," Villarreal said, and "re-emphasized that we should not use the
matriculas" because "they're not verifiable."
Villarreal, who has served as city secretary for 11 years, said that some families have
alternatives. For example, there may be a relative with proper documentation who can
apply.
"They can always call their hometown to send them valid forms of identification," she
said.
Ramirez used a Mexican voter identification card to get her two older daughters' birth
certificates, but it expired before her youngest was born. Her husband has a consular
identification card.
'It's racism'
Two mothers suing the state spoke Friday alongside their attorneys in the valley office
of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which is also representing them. Each asked to be

identified only by her first name because they fear reprisals from state and
immigration officials.
Nancy, 30, who came here from San Luis Potosi, Mexico, in 2007, has three children ages 6, 5 and 2 - who were born here, and for the last two years has been unable to get
their birth certificates from Hidalgo County.
The oldest two require special education, and Nancy, who sells food at a local shop,
worries they will not be able to register for public school or Medicaid.
"In reality, they don't want to give us papers," she said.
Juana, 33, came from Zacatecas, Mexico, 16 years ago and was able to get birth
certificates for her 13-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son.
But two years ago the farmworker was denied a birth certificate for her newborn
daughter when officials in Starr County rejected her consular identification card and
told her she needed a Mexican electoral card, which she was too young to get before
she left, or a Mexican passport with a U.S. visa, which she also doesn't have.
"We can't register for Head Start. ... We had problems with Medicaid," she said as her
pigtailed daughter drank from a sippy cup in a stroller nearby. "It's racism. Give us the
opportunity."
Allan R. Jamail
Senatorial District 6
(SDEC) Texas State Democratic Executive Committeeman
2015 - RULES, MESSAGING & CO-CHAIR SUB-COMMITTEE LEGISLATIVE
AFFAIRS (Criminal Jurisprudence & Corrections, Homeland Security and Public
Safety)
54 year proud member of the AFL-CIO.
SUSTAINING MEMBER TEXAS DEMOCRATIC PARTY
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