The U.S. government is denying passports to a number of Hispanics living along the U.S.-Mexico border, accusing them of holding fraudulent birth certificates issued illegally to babies who were actually born in Mexico from the 1950s through the 1990s by midwives and physicians, The Washington Post reports.
The newspaper did not give a number, but said the administration "is accusing hundreds, and possibly thousands," of people of having fraudulent documents.
The State Department, according to the Post, said it "has not changed policy or practice regarding the adjudication of passport applications," and added "the U.S.-Mexico border region happens to be an area of the country where there has been a significant incidence of citizenship fraud."
Anyone who has birth certificates filed by a midwife or other birth attendant "suspected of having engaged in fraudulent activities, as well as applicants who have both a U.S. and foreign birth certificate, are asked to provide additional documentation establishing they were born in the United States," the State Department said.
"Individuals who are unable to demonstrate that they were born in the United States are denied issuance of a passport," it added.
According to the Post, the State Department under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama investigated the certificates of people who had been delivered by midwives in Texas' Rio Grande Valley based on the guilty plea of a midwife who said she sold Texas birth certificates to parents of children born in Mexico.
Passport denials had dropped since 2009, though, when the U.S. government settled in a case involving the ACLU.
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