VivirLatino

U.S. Citizenship Doesn't Gurantee A Damn Thing : Not Even a Passport

09:54 H | Topics: Politics

Membership is supposed to have it's privileges and being a member of the elite U.S. citizen crew is supposed to included certain things, like the ability to have one of those fancy blue passport books, complete with an embedded ship holding virtually all your personal info save a DNA sample (for now). As if the process of getting a passport weren't a hassle enough ( I just got passports for me and my kids), if you were born in a southern border state, are Mexican-American ( I hate that term, isn't Mexico in the Americas) and were birthed by a midwife, it's like having a triple curse according to the U.S Department of State.

Today nine American citizens sued the federal government, challenging the U.S. Department of State's refusal to issue them passports because of their race and ancestry and because their births were attended by midwives. The class action lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, the international law firm Hogan & Hartson LLP and Refugio del Rio Grande, Inc., builds upon a complaint filed earlier this year.

The lawsuit charges that the State Department categorically questions the citizenship of virtually all midwife-delivered Mexican-Americans born in southern border states. According to the lawsuit, the State Department has been forcing these applicants to go to unreasonable lengths to prove their citizenship by providing an excessive number of documents that normally are not required. Then, even after the applicants supply further proof of their citizenship, the Department responds by summarily closing their applications.

The stakes are high here because laws require citizens who want to or need to enter or reenter the U.S. to have a valid U.S. passport or passport card by June 2009. I'm not just talking the jet set here. I'm talking about people who need to cross the U.S. Mexico border daily to work or deal with family.

The practice of denying passports in this case is racist on a number of levels. It serves as a reminder of the colonization of the Southern border states, meaning the taking of land and resources while "othering" the people who have live there for generations. It diminishes the extremely important role of parteras/midwives in Latino communities and makes anything outside of "normalized" doctor attended/hospital births.

David Hernandez, a plaintiff in the case, is a U.S. citizen and was born in San Benito, Texas in 1964. Hernandez lived and attended school in the Rio Grande Valley and served honorably in the U.S. Army, earning various medals and ribbons. Hernandez's passport application was closed even after he responded to the Department's demand for additional documents by providing further evidence of his birth and baptism in the U.S., evidence of his mother's residency in the U.S. at the time of his birth, his immunization records, school records, and even a letter from the Mexican Civil Registry stating that there was no record of Hernandez being born in Mexico. "I thought that in America everyone was supposed to be equal," said Hernandez. "I was born here. I've lived and worked here and served in the Army. I feel betrayed, like my country is stabbing me in the back just because my mother didn't have the luxury of having me in a hospital."

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