Immigration Reform News 2015: Judge Denies Birth Certificates for U.S.-Born Kids of Immigrants
A federal judge in Texas on Friday denied birth certificates for the U.S.-born kids of illegal immigrants, resulting in a lawsuit against the state.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman released a ruling to allow Texas officials to prevent undocumented immigrants from procuring birth certificates for their children born in the United States. Because of this, a group of illegal immigrants slapped Texas with a lawsuit alleging the Vital Statistics offices have not allowed them to obtain birth certificates for their children, according to the Latin Post.
Children without birth certificates cannot be enrolled in Medicaid or even day care even though they were born in the United States. Before, the immigrants were allowed to present secondary identification documents, such as the Mexican matricula consular ID, to procure birth certificates for their children. This identification card is usually issued by Mexican consulates to illegal residents in the United States, the report explains.
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However, when Texas implemented a crackdown on birth certificates, many of the county registers in the state have stopped accepting the matricula consular as valid identification for undocumented immigrants. The new rule has made it more difficult for the said residents to live and raise their kids in Texas, immigrant rights advocates argue.
While an official decision on the matter has not yet been made, Texas officials can continue to refuse to issue birth certificates to the immigrants' U.S.-born children. For Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the move is simply part of the state's way to ensure that all the residents are properly verified. But the children's legal counsel argued that the process is making it difficult for the kids to gain access to school, medical care, and other basic services.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama is gearing up for a plan to rewrite the country's immigration law. His modernization plan will involve the fast-tracking of work permits for hundreds of thousands of visa applicants, The Hill reports.
The planned rewriting of the U.S. immigration law will also allow hundreds of thousands of immigrants to work in the country legally, despite their undocumented status. The Obama administration's plan has sparked concerns from other groups who fear that illegal aliens will try to enter the country by all means possible should the immigration reform push through.
