Via The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (full disclosure: that's my day job and I wrote this press release)
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that some Latino citizens in the Rio Grande Valley on the US/Mexico border are being denied access to their citizenship rights based on documentation issues. Their citizenship is being called into question (despite years of residence and employment in the United States, and even successful background checks) due to their birth to midwives in private residences.The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health believes this is a racist and unfair practice, which leaves these individuals scrambling to prove citizenship with other documents, where for others a birth certificate is sufficient. This practice unfairly targets Latino citizens on the border and those who were born to parteras or midwives in private residences, a common practice among Latinos. Further, the fact that once additional documentation has been provided some individuals are still being denied makes it clear that the State Department is discriminating against these individuals along the border in Texas.
Join the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health in decrying this discriminatory practice, so we can ensure that all US citizens regardless of race, nationality or place of childbirth are granted access to their rights.
Full press release available here.
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My mother, a midwife told me about this yesterday. Not only is it unfair to midwives, it's unbelievably racist and sexist.
Her boss was interviewed by Univision and I believe was even on their national news. She discussed how it's especially hitting Texas, which is the state that she is licensed. It's really ridiculous; it's not like midwives just throw out birth certificates to anyone! And they are licensed to do so just as a hospital is. I have done a lot of paperwork for the birth center, and things are not handled there so carelessly.
Just a niggle: most midwives prefer to say that they "catch babies" or "attend birth," not deliver women. The mother gives birth, not the attendant.
As a RGV native, this fucking pisses. me. off. The government (particularly Homeland Security) has been out of control with racist policies as of late. Assholes.
1. Citizenship is not a right, it's a priviledge.
2. Since most of the people entering the country illegally at US/Mexican border are Latinos, the process can not be racist.
-Ben
ben,
glad to see you showing your true colors.
1. what are you talking about? these are citizens. by definition, citizenship for citizens is neither a right nor a privilege, it's a fact.
2. i would say classifying people by race is racist. by definition. further, making the same process more difficult for people of a certain cultural background than for other people is, well, if it's not racist, i don't know what it is.
Actually Ben, if you're born here, it is a right conferred upon you at birth. It's only a privilege for those who are naturalized as citizens.
My curiosity is from a medical/legal process standpoint: Regardless of whether you were born at home or at a hospital, isn't it the law that a birth certificate be filed with the state within a certain amount of time? If so, why do these people not have their birth certificates? Perhaps Texas has different laws, but most other states I've lived in required some form of documentation to be filed, regardless of who attended the birth.
Raven, what makes you think that they don't have birth certificates? I read the press release to say that they do have birth certificates, but that birth certificates are not being accepted as sufficient.
Raven,
they DO have birth certificates, but the government is requesting additional information, some of which is very hard to come by for folks who weren't born in hospitals. check out the wsj story.
Prove it.
"But in the early 1990s, dozens of midwives were convicted of forging U.S. birth certificates for about 15,000 children born in Mexico as far back as the 1960s."
Those are the people to blame for the current situation.
15,000 forgeries.
ah, sorry, thanks for clearing that up. I misread that sentence as them not having a birth certificate where other people did. Thank you.