Texas is a big state. One of its' regions is the Rio Grande Valley, which has a large Hispanic population. Traditionally, most Mexican-Americans here were not born in hospitals, but were born at home with the use of midwives. As the Texas Observer has shown in two articles, this has caused grief to Texans who cross the border on a regular basis because of family ties to Mexico.
One example of this is what happened to the Castro sisters. They were returning to Brownsville TX from visiting family in Matamoros Mexico.
Then they reached the checkpoint. As always, the sisters, both American citizens, rolled down their windows and handed their entry documents to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer on duty, Eliseo Cabrera. Laura Nancy handed over her U.S. passport. Yuliana presented her daughter’s Texas birth certificate and her own, along with a receipt proving she had applied for a U.S. passport. Their mother, a Mexican national, presented her visitor’s visa.
The officer, Laura Nancy says, scarcely glanced at the documents—except for Yuliana’s. He examined her birth certificate and application receipt for a few moments, then ran the information on his computer. He was especially interested, the women would soon learn, in the person who registered Yuliana’s birth certificate—a once-popular midwife named Trinidad Saldivar.
Midwifery was once a cultural institution and an economic necessity for many along the border. Since the 1960s, the practice has almost disappeared as regulations for midwives, or parteras, have become more stringent—and as they were increasingly accused of falsely registering children of Mexican families as U.S. citizens. Until the early 1990s, Saldivar was one of the most sought-out parteras along both sides of the Texas-Mexico border. Following an investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (as it was then called), Saldivar was one of more than a dozen Valley midwives accused of falsifying birth certificates. Some pleaded guilty—to avoid, they said, serving prison time. No one was asked which records they had been paid to forge and which were authentic, making it nearly impossible to determine which children had been delivered in the United States and which had not. Saldivar was never convicted, but her name was tarnished in the process—at least in the eyes of the U.S. government, which included her in a list of more than 230 "suspicious" midwives.
Because of the midwife, the family was pulled over, & each woman was placed in separate rooms, where they were interrogated for 11 hours. Finally, the mother, a Mexican citizen, signed a confession that she had submitted a false statement saying her daughters had been born in the US. Everyone was sent to Matamoros, & barred from entering the US. The daughters were barred from their homes & loved ones in Brownsville.
What could they do? They eventually got in touch with attorney Jaime Diez. An experienced immigration attorney, he agreed to take their case. But there was a problem of jurisdiction.
The Castro sisters were among those with a compelling case that required a hearing in a U.S. courtroom. The problem was, they were stuck in Matamoros. Díez got in touch with San Benito immigration attorney Lisa Brodyaga. The seasoned attorney is known in immigration law circles for inventing a procedure for filing writ of habeas corpus claims for U.S. citizens who have been barred from the United States.
Brodyaga has the client meet Díez halfway across an international bridge. Once the client steps across the marker that denotes U.S. territory, the lawyer has the person sign the habeas corpus court documents, which demands that the U.S. government give her a hearing before a federal judge. He then phones Brodyaga, who submits the documents online while Díez waits with the client on the bridge.
. . .Attorneys once could meet clients in waiting rooms at ports of entry. Since 9/11, security has become tougher, and now border agents won’t allow people to linger in waiting rooms. So Brodyaga has clients meet her, or Díez, on the bridge.
The ACLU took notice of the large numbers of Hispanics having problems getting passports & entering the country, so they filed a class action lawsuit. Last year, the State Dept. settled Castelano v. Clinton, which required among other things:
Pending court approval, DOS will train its staff on how to fairly weigh all the evidence provided in passport applications and how to avoid improperly subjecting people whose births were assisted by midwives in Texas and along the U.S.-Mexico border to heightened scrutiny in reviewing their passport applications. All denials will be automatically reviewed by a three-member panel comprised of experienced DOS staff members, and if that panel also denies an application, DOS must communicate the specific reasons for the denial to the applicant. The applicant can then challenge the denial and ask DOS to reconsider its decision.
Additionally, anyone birthed by a midwife who has filed an application for a passport between April 2003 and September 15, 2008 and, with a few exceptions, whose application was not expressly "denied," can re-apply for free. DOS will be setting up mobile units across the border on specific dates to assist those reapplying.
DOS has also agreed to restrictions on a list it maintains of suspect midwives and other birth attendants, which it purported to use to justify its discriminatory policies. Importantly, DOS will not deny a passport application simply because the applicant's birth attendant or midwife is on the list. Furthermore, DOS will conduct regular reviews of the list to ensure that no one is included unless DOS has a reasonable, lawful basis to do so. These measures will help ensure that DOS does force passport applicants to take unnecessary measures to prove their citizenship and does not arbitrarily deny passports merely because the individual was born to a suspect midwife.
Of course, the Castro sisters & other individuals have lawsuits still pending. People are also talking about changing immigration law, so US citizens can once again directly appeal to immigration judges. I ask my readers to go read the articles at the Texas Observer website.