Tornado Alley (PROG)

[arizona1]

Let the lawsuits begin!!!

The model state of Texas denies birth certificates to children of immigrants born within its borders

One question: how is this legal? Not that Texas is known for its strict adherence to the Constitution. But in the last year, certain Texas counties have simply stopped issuing birth certificates to children born in the state to undocumented immigrants. Not to be a stickler for constitutional details here, but the first line of the Fourteenth Amendment states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

Melissa del Bosque reports that four women have filed a legal challenge to what appears to be an emerging pattern from the Texas Department of State Health Services, not to mention a willful disregard of the U.S. Constitution.

Jennifer Harbury, a lawyer with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, who is representing the women, said the deluge of birth certificate refusals began last winter. “I’ve never seen such a large number of women with this problem,” she says. “In the past someone might be turned away, but it was always resolved. This is something altogether new.”

According to the lawsuit, the women who requested birth certificates for their children at the state’s vital statistics offices in Cameron and Hidalgo counties were turned away because of insufficient proof of their identities. State law allows the use of a foreign ID if the mother lacks a Texas driver’s license or a U.S. passport.

But employees at the offices, which are run by the Texas Department of State Health Services, told the women they would no longer accept either the matricula consular, which is a photo ID issued by the Mexican Consulate to Mexican nationals living in the U.S., or a foreign passport without a current U.S. visa.

Legal considerations aside, this policy is taking a real-world toll on the affected families and their kids. Among other things, children cannot be enrolled in school without a birth certificate, nor can their mothers authorize critical medical treatments for them if they cannot prove their relation to their child.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/14/1402257/-The-model-state-of-Texas-denies-birth-certificates-to-immigrant-children-born-there