Posted on 09/24/2010 7:34:22 AM PDT by Libloather
PR extends deadline for voiding birth certificates
Posted on Thursday, 09.23.10
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Puerto Rico is giving islanders one more month to use their original birth certificates before they are no longer recognized, as offices struggle to handle a flood of applications for new, more secure documents.
Thursday's announcement comes a week before the birth certificates were to be voided under a new identity fraud law affecting about 5 million people - including some 1.4 million on the U.S. mainland.
Puerto Ricans commonly use their birth certificates for a variety of everyday uses such as enrolling in schools or joining churches, sports teams and other groups.
However the documents are often loosely secured and can fetch up to $6,000 on the black market, peddled to illegal immigrants who assume false identities to be able to work and get drivers' licenses in the United States.
Last December, Puerto Rican lawmakers passed a law voiding all birth certificates and requiring people to get new ones with security features.
The original deadline was Sept. 30, but Puerto Rico State Secretary Kenneth McClintock said Thursday that people can keep using their current birth certificates until Oct. 30.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Can Hawaii be far behind?
Ha ha\\ Does Obama get a new one ?
I’m wondering what the “more secure documents” are.
A globalized system of identification perhaps?
Hawaii is a gateway for illegals to enter the US legally using fraudulent documents.see Obama
“Puerto Rico is a gateway for illegals to enter the US legally using fraudulent documents.”
The problem with the Puerto Rico birth certificates is that because so many organizations on the island ask for them
(to enroll in a school, play Little League Baseball, etc.), schools and other organizations have drawers full of these birth certificates, and it is quite easy for a cleaning person to steal them and sell them to someone who goes on to sell the certificates to Spanish-speaking illegal aliens in the mainland. An illegal alien from Mexico that gets his hands on one of those birth certificates can adopt the name on the certificate and then get a driver’s license or other official document with a picture (reminiscent of the scene in Cheech Marin’s Born in East L.A. in which an illegal is sold a fake ID and told “your name is now Fernando Valenzuela; you won 21 games for the Dodgers last year).
Due to this problem, the government of Puerto Rico is issuing new birth certificates with security features (no idea what they are) and making the old birth certificates null and void. Frankly, I don’t see how this will solve the problem of genuine birth certificates for bona fide citizens being sold to illegal aliens who then adopt the name on the certificate.
That's the point. If you can get into Puerto Rico, legally or illegally, you can then get a phony birth certificate, which then opens up the ability to travel to the US mainland legally. You can also get a US passport.
From what I’ve read, illegal aliens can get Puerto Rico birth certificates anywhere they sell fake IDs to illegals, whether in Puerto Rico or the U.S. mainland. So I don’t think it’s correct to call Puerto Rico a gateway to the U.S. mainland for illegal aliens—the Rio Grande is the gateway.
The new law was based on collaborations with the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to address the fraudulent use of Puerto Rico-issued birth certificates to unlawfully obtain U.S. passports, Social Security benefits, and other federal services, and to commit other types of identity theft and fraud.
It was certainly necessary for Puerto Rico to change its regulations regarding the issuance of birth certificates, and I think that further steps should be taken as well (such as limiting the number of certificates that a person may request in a year—let the schools accept photocopies). But I think that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens that purchased Puerto Rico birth certificates got the certificates after already being in the U.S., not prior to entry, so the certificates are more of a way for illegals to stay illegally than for them to enter illegally in the first place. I doubt that anyone would be foolish enough to go to a U.S. embassy in the Dominican Republic or Mexico and request a U.S. passport with someone else’s Puerto Rico birth certificate in hand, since embassy officers would be far likelier to view such document with suspicion than would, say, a DMV employee in Hartford, CT.
They could get a US passport in Puerto Rico. Where do you get your information from re the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens that purchased Puerto Rico birth certificates got the certificates after already being in the U.S.
As someone who served as a foreign service officer for 28 years, I have some familiarity with how the process works. Certainly, someone who is in the DR or Mexico could not go into an Embassy or Consulate and ask for the issuance of a passport, unless it is a replacement for a lost one. Such an application would require other documentation beyond a birth certificate and the consular officer would check with the Passport Office in DC to determine if a passport had been issued to that person previously.
Are you originally from PR? You seem to be a little exercised about the fact that illegals can use PR as a gateway into the US.
Puerto Rico is part of the U.S., so if someone obtained the Puerto Rico birth certificate in Puerto Rico, he necessarily obtained it after having entered the United States.
One cannot enter the U.S. from Mexico or the Dominican Republic (at least not anymore) with a Puerto Rico birth certificate (or one from any state, for that matter); you need a passport. Given that, as you point out, one could not obtain a U.S. passport in a U.S. embassy merely with a Puerto Rico birth certificate, how could someone use a Puerto Rico birth certificate to obtain a document that would allow him to enter legally into the U.S. under false pretenses? However, once someone slips into the U.S. illegally (which apparently is not all that difficult to do, particularly across the border with Mexico), he can buy a Puerto Rico birth certificate and use it to get other U.S. ID. So the Puerto Rico birth certificates are a big problem, but such certificates do not help illegals get into the U.S. in the first place.
And since a small percentage of illegal aliens in the U.S. mainland went through Puerto Rico first, you can’t call Puerto Rico a major gateway to the U.S. for illegal aliens even if you set aside for a moment that one does not legally “enter the U.S.” when one flies from Puerto Rico to Miami any more than one would be “entering the U.S.” when one flew from Hawaii to L.A.
And as for my interest in the issue, yes, I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and while I freely acknowledge that Puerto Rico has many problems, being a major gateway for illegal immigrants to the U.s. mainland is not one of them.
I suspect, especially for a Latino, that obtaining a phony birth certificate is easier in PR than it would be in the US. Don't you think that corruption is much more rampant in PR?
However, once someone slips into the U.S. illegally (which apparently is not all that difficult to do, particularly across the border with Mexico), he can buy a Puerto Rico birth certificate and use it to get other U.S. ID. So the Puerto Rico birth certificates are a big problem, but such certificates do not help illegals get into the U.S. in the first place.
That's not the issue. The issue is changing your status from illegal to legal. Once you have a US passport, you have the keys to the Kingdom. A PR birth certificate gets you a US passport and legality. You don't even need to go through the green card process. It is immediate. Again, I provided you with the link showing the reason why PR is changing its birth certificates. DHS has identified it as a problem and a vulnerablility. The same holds true for other US territories like Guam.
And since a small percentage of illegal aliens in the U.S. mainland went through Puerto Rico first, you can’t call Puerto Rico a major gateway to the U.S. for illegal aliens even if you set aside for a moment that one does not legally “enter the U.S.” when one flies from Puerto Rico to Miami any more than one would be “entering the U.S.” when one flew from Hawaii to L.A.
Again, the issue is changing status from illegal to legal in PR. We really don't know how much of a problem it is because it is difficult to measure. We do know that fairly large numbers of people from the DR are going there. Overall, between 1966 and 2002 119,000 Dominicans were legally admitted to Puerto Rico, while many thousands arrived illegally. The 2007 Puerto Rico Community Survey estimated a population of 82,344 Dominicans in Puerto Rico, equal to 2.1% of the Commonwealth's population.
Illegal immigration of Chinese nationals has become a problem in Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico's law change followed raids last year against a criminal ring that stole thousands of birth certificates and other identifying documents from several schools in the U.S. commonwealth. The island is now requiring about 5 million people — including 1.4 million in the U.S. — to apply for new birth certificates with security features.
Many US states are no longer accepting PR birth certificates because of the problems with them.
And as for my interest in the issue, yes, I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and while I freely acknowledge that Puerto Rico has many problems, being a major gateway for illegal immigrants to the U.s. mainland is not one of them.
Can you point out to me where I said it was a major gateway? My problem with what is happening in PR and other US territories is that they are the weak link in many ways for illegals to become legal using real birth certificates that may or may not be sold or stolen. Once you are legalized, then you are a citizen with all of the rights and privileges that entails. I see it more as a national security problem than anything else.
OK, you didn’t say “major,” but you said “Puerto Rico is a gateway for illegals to enter the US legally using fraudulent documents.” And in that sentence, you are conflating two issues: (i) the problem with PR birth certificates being sold to illegal aliens, who then use them to get driver’s licenses (it would be much harder for them to get passports) and (ii) the probem of illegal Dominicans entering PR by boat (some of whom go on to move to NYC or Boston). The fraudulent documents are *not* used by illegals to *enter* the U.S., and most of the fraudulent documents are not used by illegals who passed through PR.
So 119,000 Dominicans legally entered PR between 1966 and 2002, plus maybe another 200,000 who entered illegally, but only 82,000 Dominicans were said to reside in PR. This does not give us any indication of how many Dominicans who moved to PR later moved to the mainland. You should be aware that not only have many Dominicans who have entered PR over the past 44 years died already, but an even greater number has returned to the Dominican Republic. Dominicans who are admitted legally to the U.S. and reside in PR tend to be domestic workers and construction workers, and they almost invariably return to the Dominican Republic for a the entire months of December and January (many have their families over there) and eventually retire back in the Dominican. And the number who have retired pales in comparison to those who went back to the Dominican because they didn’t like it in PR or because the job market was bad or because their mom got sick. The retention rate of Dominicans in PR is rather low, although there always seems to be another one willing to make the boat trip and pick up the slack.
Is corruption “much more rampant” in PR than in, say, IL or NJ or LA? Maybe, maybe not, but the birth certificates that have been sold to illegal aliens apparently were not sold by corrupt employees of the PR government but have been stolen from schools and Little Leagues and ballet schools that received them and filed them away. In fact, you just quoted the article as saying that the certificates were sold by a criminal ring who stole them from schools. So it is not an issue of government corruption.
I think that we are on the exact same page regarding the need to crack down on birth certificates from Puerto Rico floating around and being used by illegal aliens. However, the problem stems from the fcat that schools and other organizations in PR ask for original birth certificates for every student, which is not something that I believe happens in the 50 states, and this results in dozens of birth certificates for each person floating around in places with little or no security. It is irrelevant to even talk about how many illegal aliens enter PR each year (a small fraction of the number that enter CA, AZ, NM or TX), or how many of those eventually move to the mainland.
No, it wouldn't if they had "valid" PR birth certificates. It will be much harder now since the problem has been identified an PR will be issuing new ones. In some respects it is closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Any illegal who obtained a US passport this way will not be asked again for his/her birth certificate.
First Time Applicants for Passports
Is corruption “much more rampant” in PR than in, say, IL or NJ or LA? Maybe, maybe not, but the birth certificates that have been sold to illegal aliens apparently were not sold by corrupt employees of the PR government but have been stolen from schools and Little Leagues and ballet schools that received them and filed them away. In fact, you just quoted the article as saying that the certificates were sold by a criminal ring who stole them from schools. So it is not an issue of government corruption.
Except for perhaps Washington DC, I would wager that the PR government is more corrupt.
Ranking Government Corruption in Latin America
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