VivirLatino

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.

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