Texas is Denying Birth Certificates to U.S. Citizens
Over the last several months, immigrant families in south Texas who have attempted to receive birth certificates for children born in the United States were denied. These instances were detailed in a civil lawsuit filed in May. Lawyers from the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, Inc. filed the case on the grounds of unconstitutional discrimination. Since that initial filing, an amended lawsuit was presented with additional plaintiffs.
The civil lawsuit notes that officials in Texas were specifically not recognizing forms of identification from Mexico commonly known as “Matrícula consular” that are issued by Mexican consulates. An attorney from Legal Aid who is representing six families, Jennifer Harbury said, “what they are saying is that if you’re undocumented but have a U.S.-born child, we are not going to give you birth certificates anymore.”
James Harrington, from the Texas Civil Rights Project, went even further in a written statement to The Texas Observer. “Even in the darkest hours of Texas’ history of discrimination, officials never denied birth certificates to Hispanic children of immigrants.”
Last week the United States on Commission on Civil Rights formally called upon Attorney General Loretta Lynch to involve the Department of Justice in a formal investigation into both the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Vital Statistics Unit.
“A majority of the Commission believes additionally that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law, and that the denial of a birth certificate to the most vulnerable of our citizens — infants — solely on the basis of their parental immigration status would violate this protection.”
Of course many lawmakers in the United States are currently advocating for a reinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Earlier this year Senator David Vitter (R-LA) attempted to include a provision in the Justice for Victims of Trafficking act that “would end the practice of granting automatic citizenship to all children born in the United States.” That provision was not included in the final version of heavily contested bill.
But the epicenter of this debate is really in Texas, a state that has grown even more conservative and where many politicians are taking a hard line on illegal immigration. For many lawmakers in the state questioning this country’s birthright citizenship is becoming a de facto position.
Way back in 2005 Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) spoke at an Immigration Subcommittee Hearing offering his support for the elimination of birthright citizenship.
“Passing a law to eliminate birth citizenship would deter illegal immigration and reduce the burden of the taxpayer of paying for government benefits that go to illegal immigrants.”
Nearly 48% of Texans do support repealing birthright citizenship, at least according to a 2010 poll from the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune. Actually repealing the Fourteenth Amendment would be a gargantuan task, but that isn’t precluding the actions of many in Texas.
The threat to women’s health services in Texas is already reaching dangerously unprecedented levels, particularly for immigrants. In 2011, 50% of children born that year were Hispanic. Of that population, 43% were births to foreign-born Hispanics.
In March the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health sponsored a women’s human rights hearing with the Center for Reproductive Rights and the U.S. Human Rights Network. The hearing specifically focused on Texas and the plight of immigrant women in the state. Nancy Northup, the President and CEO for the Center for Reproductive Rights talked about the importance of the hearing and how it, “lifts the voices of the woman and their families who have suffered the brunt of this health care crisis, and exposes these state policies as the human rights violations they are.”
Without a birth certificate, a child cannot enroll in schools, recreational programs or fly on certain airlines. For an immigrant woman in Texas, being denied a birth certificate for a child is just another indignity she might have to face in the state.
