OneWorld.net (U.S.)

SAN FRANCISCO, Sep 22 (New America Media) - Texas native David Hernandez, a decorated Army veteran who served hiscountry in different parts of the world, can no longer see the worldafter his country denied him a passport.

Hernandez and other residents living in and around the U.S.-Mexicoborder are plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit alleging that, indenying them passports, the U.S. State Department is engaging in a newkind of racial discrimination: non-citizen profiling.

"This all started when I sent them (the U.S. State Department) mypassport and they sent me a letter saying that it wasn't sufficient.So, I sent them all kinds of documents -a baptismal certificate,military records, pictures of me in the pre-kindergarten, a copy of mygrandmother's birth certificate that showed that she was an Americancitizen," he said, adding, "and that still wasn't enough. I knewsomething was wrong when they even started asking me for things likeCensus documents from the 1930's that don't even exist."

Hernandez and the other plaintiffs say that the U.S. government isdenying them passports because they are persons of Mexican and Latinodescent whose births were assisted by parteras, or midwives. "The lawsays that if you're born in this country, have parents who are or whoget naturalized, you are a citizen," said Hernandez his voice crackingwith anger and frustration. "We were all born here. We're all citizens.The only difference is that we're Hispanic, we grew up poor and wehappened not to be born in a hospital. My mother had to pay a partera$40 instead."

Lawyers for Hernandez and the other plaintiffs say they have documenteda systematic pattern of racial discrimination among hundreds, perhapsthousands of people of Mexican descent who, like him, applied forpassports and were subjected to unreasonable and arbitrary demands foran inordinate and often impossible-to-find documents proving they arecitizens of the United States.

For Robin Goldfaden, an attorney with the American Civil LibertiesUnion (ACLU), which is co-counsel in the case along with other lawfirms, the passport suit "shows a spirit of disregard for birthrightcitizenship and a reckless disregard for the actual citizenship of anentire class of people."

Goldfaden pointed out that although midwifery is a long-held traditionamong whites, blacks and others living in Appalachia, Texas and otherparts of the United States where hospital-assisted birth isunaffordable or unavailable, the denial of passports is only takingplace among people of Mexican descent living along the southern border.

"Some of the plaintiffs in this case were born in the 1930s andearlier, when, for example, half of all babies in Texas were deliveredby midwives," said Goldfaden, who believes that the case raisesconcerns beyond those raised by Hernandez and other plaintiffs."Anytime the government violates due process and the constitutionalpromise of equal protection as they did in this case, we should all beconcerned."

The passport case comes on the heels of intensified efforts tofundamentally alter the definition of who is and isn't a citizen. Forseveral years, members of Congress and anti-immigrant groups in Texasand several other states have proposed state and federal laws denyingbirthright citizenship to the U.S. born children of undocumentedimmigrants. Some Texas residents like Father Mike Seiffert also tracesuch practices to the long history of denying citizenship to differentcategories of people in the United States.

"I was born in Alabama" said Seiffert, who is pastor of the San Felipede Jesus Catholic church in Brownsville, "and I've seen this kind ofdiscrimination before; I've seen government officials trying to denyrights to people by not recognizing them as citizens, only here inTexas it's not African Americans, but Latinos."

Seiffert became aware of the passport denial issue in his church."After a couple of the members of my congregation came to me concernedand even crying because they were denied passports and would no longerbe able to see their families in Mexico, I decided to ask thecongregation if there were others facing similar situations," Seiffertsaid. "And 60 people came up and said they had the same passportproblem."

He called what happened to members of his congregation affected by thepassports situation “disgraceful.” Behind the tears, he said, are "manymembers of our congregation (who) won't be able to do what they've donefor decades: cross the border to see their families; many won't be ableto sustain themselves by doing business as they've always done inMexico," he said. "There's no hospital around here and when you drivemany miles to get healthcare, it's very expensive. So people will alsobe denied basic healthcare because they will no longer be able to gojust across the border to get cheap medicine or see a doctor inMatamorros for $15. This is deeply disturbing and it reminds me ofAlabama."

And like in the deep South, the non-citizen profiling in Texas is alsoinspiring activism among many. "I grew up studying the history of civilrights, Martin Luther King and how he had to fight his own government,"said Hernandez, " But I never thought I'd be fighting for my civilrights. Now I understand history in a different way."

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