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U.S. challenging some passport applicants born on border
By JAMES PINKERTON Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Feb. 13, 2009, 9:08PM


Eric Gay AP
Anna Karen Ramirez, 19, sued the State Department to get her passport so she could visit her parents in Reynosa, Mexico.

If you were born in the United States along the border with Mexico, and a lay midwife assisted in your birth, you may have a hard time getting a U.S. passport.

Wary of fraudulent birth documents provided by some lay midwives, the U.S. State Department is challenging the passport applications of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of border residents and requiring additional proof that the applicants were born in the U.S.

The challenges come as Texas border residents hustle to obtain a U.S. passport required by June 1 for travel over the border. And they reflect the government’s concern about the validity of birth documents filed by midwives convicted of selling U.S. birth documents to parents of children born in Mexico.

Immigration lawyers, and even an ex-prosecutor in one high-profile fraud case, say the wide-ranging challenge is unfair.

“I don’t doubt there were cases of fraud, but they are punishing the whole for the faults of the few,â€