Immigration Law

STATE DEPARTMENT DENIES PASSPORTS FOR CERTAIN MEXICAN-AMERICANS

By Greg Siskind

This is just a really strange story and one that will no doubt end with a judge or judges telling the State Department to get real. According to a report in the Washington Post,

The State Department is denying passports to people born in southern Texas near the border with Mexico if they were delivered by midwives, citing a history of birth certificate forgeries there for Mexican-born children dating to the 1960s, according to U.S. officials.

Whether there was fraud or not 40+ years ago does not justify heavy-handed discrimination. And the American Civil Liberties Union is fighting back:

In a lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union alleges that the government is systematically discriminating against U.S.-born citizens on the basis of ethnicity and national origin. Attorneys for the plaintiff assert that such arbitrary bans disproportionately affect rural and poor people who have less access to doctors.

Federal authorities "have adopted and applied blanket suspicion toward one group of passport applicants . . . effectively denying the passports of many for the apparent sins of a few," the ACLU states in a complaint to be filed today in U.S. District Court in McAllen, Tex.

The civil liberties group is seeking class-action status on behalf of tens of thousands of Mexican Americans of all ages delivered by midwives in border states, alleging violations of constitutional due process and equal protection guarantees.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on September 09, 2008 (boomark / email).