..................Doesn’t someone have to produce a valid birth
certificate to acquire a US passport? “
NO
Absolutely yes! For my first passport about 30 years ago, I had to visit the Queens Co NY vital records dept, wait around, wait around, wait around, until the shuffling employee produced a duplicate copy of my Birth Cert.
Then I had to present that to the Passport officials, and wait around, and wait around, and wait around, until I finally got a passport.
Maybe it’s easier now. Maybe if you speak broken English and show up wearing a shirt and shoes, you’re deemed passport material!
I will bet your first Passport was blue and
not green.
I did not have to have a birth certificate
when I got mine over 40 years ago.
I did have several ID proofs but I have
never had a BC.
I went through the Army and school without one
and I did have to get people to swear they
knew me all my life to get my passport with.
Some people born in the thirties or earlier
were born at home and not put into the system.