Thread: Mexican program offers voter ID cards to illegal aliens

Mexican program offers immigrants another valid ID


Posted: 3:08 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016
By James Barragan - American-Statesman Staff

The rollout of a new program by the Mexican government to provide voter registration cards for its citizens in the United States will give some unauthorized immigrants in Texas another tool out of a legal limbo.

In recent years, immigrants who entered the country illegally have been denied copies of birth certificates for their Texas-born children because they couldn’t provide proof of identification the state considered valid. Last year, a group of mothers who said the policy denied their children citizenship rights filed suit against the state’s health department.

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Carlos González Gutiérrez

This week, through an effort to increase the voter participation of its citizens living abroad, the Mexican government began accepting applications for its voter registration card in the United States. That move potentially could benefit unauthorized Mexican immigrants by providing them another valid form of identification for obtaining birth certificates that had previously only been available by returning to Mexico — a risky proposition for those here illegally.

“In particular, this will be a very interesting development for people who are having difficulties obtaining a birth certificate for their children and have an irregular migratory status,” said Carlos González Gutiérrez, Mexico’s consul general in Austin, who filed a “friend of the court” brief in the mothers’ lawsuit.

But those concerned that documents issued by Mexico’s government aren’t secure and are prone to fraud and identity theft expressed apprehension about Texas accepting the voter registration card as a valid ID.

Jon Feere, of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank whose research often calls for more restrictive immigration policies, said he wasn’t sure the voter registration cards were any safer than the Mexican consular cards or passports without visas that Texas had rejected before.

“How much more secure are these cards than the ‘matricula consular’? That is a question that would have to be answered by the state of Texas to feel secure in accepting them,” Feere said.

The program could aid Mexican undocumented parents struggling to obtain their child’s birth certificates, but it doesn’t settle the lawsuit since several of the plaintiffs are from Central American countries, whose diplomatic posts don’t have an equivalent program.

Though the initiative provides help for Mexican immigrants in that situation, González Gutiérrez said, it didn’t come as a response to the lawsuit.

The processing of voter registration cards in the U.S. is the latest part of a decades-long struggle that started in 1996 to enfranchise Mexican citizens living abroad, he said.

Austin’s consulate was among those in 16 U.S. cities that were the first to offer the program this week. Three others are in Texas: Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. More cities will be added to the program next month, and, by August, all Mexican consulates and embassies around the world will accept applications for voter registration cards.

The program’s big presence in Texas, González Gutiérrez said, is a testament to the size of the Mexican diaspora in the state. Texas is second only to California in the size of its Mexican population with an estimated 2.5 million Mexicans, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

But the voter registration card doesn’t provide a full resolution for immigrants struggling to obtain their child’s birth certificate. The card is only a secondary form of identification under the state health department’s guidelines, which means people using it would still need to present another approved form of identification, such as a student ID, a signed Social Security card or a medical insurance card.

As in Mexico, the voter registration card is available free of charge in the U.S., González Gutiérrez said.

“This just comes at a very good time for our citizens who are living in Texas and can now use that card to obtain birth certificates for their children,” he said. “The big picture is to say to our countrymen, ‘You continue to be a Mexican citizen even if you don’t live within our borders and, since 1998, you no longer lose your Mexican citizenship if you obtain another one.’”

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news...alid-id/nqNq8/

Mr Trump says you are null & void.....yes indeedee!

This proves nothing. Mexico allows dual citizenship and voting rights in Mexican elections to people in their diaspora so this is no new twist.. It doesn't mean they were necessarily born abroad, just that Mexico is recognizing that an individual has Mexican heritage. Plus, this is so obviously open to false claims, it's pathetic and looks more like a stupidly calculated move to meddle. There still has to be proof, not just an assertion. Even if they find Mexican born parents, the child could have been born in Tierra del Fuego, for all we know. OTOH, US authorities demand proof. Or at least they are supposed to..

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