{"id":3716,"date":"2015-06-08T20:09:18","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T20:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3716"},"modified":"2015-06-08T20:09:23","modified_gmt":"2015-06-08T20:09:23","slug":"court-order-sought-to-free-birth-certificates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3716","title":{"rendered":"Court Order Sought to Free Birth Certificates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Eric Galatas\/TNS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>AUSTIN, Texas &#8211; A civil rights case has been filed against the Texas Department of State Health Services and key officials for denying parents without proof of legal immigration status birth certificates for their U.S.-citizen children.<\/p>\n<p>The suit claims parents presented their child\u2019s hospital birth records and social security cards, and proof of their own identities, but were denied by local vital statistics offices.<\/p>\n<p>Jennifer Harbury, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, says everyone born in the United States is entitled to the full rights of citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re basically disrupting families in depriving U.S.-citizen children of their basic rights, and their mother\u2019s ability to take proper care of them with regard to medical care, school enrollment, emergency treatment,\u201d says Harbury.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3717\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3717\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3717\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/gr-46443-1-1.jpg\" alt=\" A civil rights lawsuit claims Texas is denying parents of U.S.-citizen children access to their birth certificates, making it hard for kids to access medical care and enroll in school. Photo: FlickreviewR\/Wikimedia Commons.\" width=\"600\" height=\"471\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/gr-46443-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/gr-46443-1-1-300x236.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/gr-46443-1-1-405x318.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/gr-46443-1-1-100x78.jpg 100w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/gr-46443-1-1-80x63.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3717\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A civil rights lawsuit claims Texas is denying parents of U.S.-citizen children access to their birth certificates, making it hard for kids to access medical care and enroll in school. Photo: FlickreviewR\/Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A spokesperson for the Department of State Health Services claims Texas has long required a more secure form of identification than the Matricula Consular to verify a parent\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n<p>Harbury counters the state is even refusing valid passports without U.S. visas and the Matricula meets state regulations because it\u2019s an official form of identification issued by a foreign consulate.<\/p>\n<p>The civil rights suit claims the state discriminated against the parents and children based on the parents\u2019 immigration status. Harbury points out that the Constitution doesn\u2019t permit arbitrary or vindictive discrimination against any person, let alone children, and believes the state\u2019s actions go against American values.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have moral duty to accept these people. It\u2019s what our country is made of. What\u2019s also at stake is our core values as American citizens,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is what our country is about; we are a nation of immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit also alleges the state overreached by interfering with the federal government\u2019s authority over immigration affairs. Incidents of parents being denied their children\u2019s birth certificates have been reported in El Paso, McAllen, Brownsville and Harlingen &#8211; all border cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Eric Galatas\/TNS AUSTIN, Texas &#8211; A civil rights case has been filed against the Texas Department of State Health Services and key officials for denying parents without proof of legal immigration status birth certificates for their U.S.-citizen children. The suit claims parents presented their child\u2019s hospital birth records and social security cards, and proof [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3718,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions\/3718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}