NBC News
By Suzanne Gamboa
August 21, 2015
As
2016 presidential candidates spar over birthright citizenship, Texas
has been embroiled in a battle over the claim to American citizenship of
U.S.-born children of
immigrants.
As
NBC News Latino reported in May, a civil lawsuit was filed in federal
district court in Austin over the state's denial of birth certificates
to U.S. citizen children
on the border whose parents can't provide required identification.
Six
U.S.-born children and their Mexican citizen mothers who lack legal
status were the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed by the Texas
Civil Rights Project. The
lawsuit has since expanded to 17.
The
state has said it is enforcing laws already on the books requiring
specific types of identification that the women don't have. The state
says it does not accept the
Mexico government-issued matrícula consular ID card from parents
wanting to obtain their child's birth certificate.
Families have also said they have been unable to present non-U.S. passports to obtain the birth certificates.
"We
have a system in Texas in which people who are born here are being
relegated to a second-class status because of who their parents are,"
said Manny Garcia, executive
director of the Texas Democratic Party. The state's elected offices are
held by Republicans and the attorney general, Ken Paxton, who has been
enforcing the identification requirement, is Republican.
Paxton
is seeking dismissal of the lawsuit saying the court has no
jurisdiction over claims against the state's health department.
The
issue of birthright citizenship - the automatic granting of U.S. citizenship to people who are born in the U.S. - blew up the campaign
trail this week. Several Republican
candidates, though not all, have called for a repeal of birthright citizenship,which has its roots in the Constitution's 14th amendment -
passed to protect black American citizens following the Civil War.
On
Thursday, the debate over birthright citizenship intensified over the
use of the term "anchor baby" to refer to U.S. citizens whose parents
are immigrants. Although
the term is largely used to refer to children of immigrants here
illegally, it also has been used to refer to those born to parents who
enter the country using the country's legal entry processes.
Jeb
Bush, who used the term along with Donald Trump, planned to be in
Texas' Rio Grande Valley, where many of the families are from, to visit
the border city of McAllen
on Monday.
Last
month, a majority of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights wrote a letter
to U.S Attorney General Loretta Lynch requesting an investigation into
Texas birth certificate
denials. The commission has also asked Texas' interim health
commissioner about the birth certificate denials and is considering
whether to investigate.
"If
such denials are taking place, a federal court could hold that the
State of Texas violated the constitutional rights of these children,
regardless of the nature of
their parent's immigration status," the commission said in a statement.
"Denial
of this basic constitutional right to these most vulnerable of U.S.
citizens is a further example of intolerance and xenophobia that must
not be allowed to stand,"
Martin Castro, the commission's chairman said in the statement.
The
Texas situation had hit the 2016 campaign trail before this week. Late
last month, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is seeking the Democratic
presidential nomination,
called on the state's health office to "cease this discriminatory and
unconstitutional practice immediately.
"Citizenship is a human right," O'Malley said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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