We do have some national slogans about thinking twice:
“Don’t Tread on Me”
“Don’t Mess with Texas”
“We Did It Before, We’ll Do It Again”
“Lock Her Up”
Unfortunately, the “thinking twice” is meant for everyone else.
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Apparently some midwife or midwives in border regions were accused of registering fake births so that non-citizens could then claim to have been born in the US. I assume this happened once at least, but during the Obama administration, the government started scrutinizing border-area births outside hospitals for this reason. Now the Trump admin is doubling down and apparently systematically treating all home births (which saw waves of popularity in the '60s and '70s and in the last few decades) to those with Hispanic last names as all suspect.
An American friend was living in Italy, having some issues, and the government demanded proof of identity, one acceptable form being a baptism certificate. (So she went and got baptized in a local church. Problem solved!) I never thought the US would have such absurd requirements, but of course it does - it’s just a similar archaic vestige from a much earlier time that’s stuck around.
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That would be this story.
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That they’re not even confining themselves to the border region anymore is insane.
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I suspect the real problem is likely in Barbara’s real name.
It is probably the same reason the Estevez’s renamed themselves as Sheens.
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And of course this comes from the party that screams for voter ID and claims no one has trouble getting ID.
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In fairness, one has to have a keen ear for dogwhistles to hear the correction I’m adding in bold.
Really, one has to be either a bigot and/or an extreme anti-statist to be blind to how this could backfire. Even a neoliberal hero of the Cato Institute and The Economist understands the value of the state formally authenticating identity, if only in the service of [pause while I let Libertarians kneel in reverence] protecting property rights.
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As others have pointed out, nothing like that is happening here. Family bibles were used for record keeping because almost every family had one, they had several blank pages at the front for the purpose, and they were the one possession most likely to be cared for and passed down through the generations. Religion was only peripherally involved.
(Aside: I wonder what would happen if one presented the family Quran or Necronomicon at the passport office?)
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I wrote a long wall of text addressing the points that were made by polite people of good will, but on re-reading it, I think it’s not worth anyone’s time. It certainly wasn’t worth the time I took to type it!
There are only two things that I will pluck out of that morass:
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Family bibles are recognized historical records under US law and have been so recognized since before the founding of the USA. Since they can be centuries old, they are far more difficult to fake than birth certificates and attract attention when used - which is probably why they are not a significant source of fraud (although as we all know, birth certificate fraud is a huge and ongoing problem everywhere in the USA.)
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@gracchus’s link does not help anyone unless they have a record in the State Vital Statistics Office. People who need to use family bibles to validate their citizenship do not have such records, obviously. My mother, her four surviving sisters, and her brother did not. Thank you, though, for the attempt.
As to why I am saddened by this discussion, it is because people here are expressing eager support for taking away something - the right to use one’s family records in legal circumstances, a right Americans have used to benefit their families for over 200 years. Taking away that right seems certain to cause some amount of harm, for someone, somewhere.
Yet no purpose would be served, other than doing that harm. Nothing is gained except to do harm to people. No fraud would be prevented - anyone who can fake a family bible can fake a birth certificate or obtain a real one. It makes me sad that people are so eager to support doing unknown amounts of harm that they would try to find a reason to justify it. Does that make sense?
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Or a pasta cookbook for the Pastafarians out there.
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2 points…
- family bibles are so important they are one of the last items listed under secondary possible supporting documents
- I am all for anyone’s religious texts being taken away. fuck that sideways with a wooden spoon the idea that some non corporeal belief system takes precedence over the actual fucking here and now.
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OMFG, that is NOT what is happening here.
No one here (except for Quori, just now) has said a peep about not being able to use a family freakin’ bible to get official id.
What is disturbing to most people who have responded is that the woman’s official birth certificate was refused, and it was suggested that she use her family bible instead.
THAT IS THE PROBLEM AT HAND: LEGAL DOCUMENTATION WAS NOT ACCEPTED AS PROOF OF ID.
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No.
Nobody is taking away the ability to use a family Bible to help obtain a US Passport.
However, If you don’t have one there are several other options seen here:
Early public or private documents
- Early public or private documents are documents that were created and/or issued early in the applicant’s life, preferably in the first five years.
- Public records should include the applicant’s full name, date of birth, and place of birth. Examples include:
- Baptism certificate
- Hospital birth certificate (often shows baby’s footprints)
- U.S. Census record
- Early school records
- Family Bible record
- Doctor’s records of post-natal care
- Form DS-10, Birth Affidavit ( this form is for applicants whose birth in the United States was recorded more than one year late or who have a Letter of No Record. )
The law hasn’t changed. This unfortunate incident occurred because some trumpian yokel in Kansas has their head up their ass. She would have been better off dealing with the US Passport office in DC.
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Yup. Luckily that’s not what’s being said here. What’s being said that writing birthdays in a book shouldn’t be accepted as valid. Not in the Bible, not in the Q’uran, not in Green Eggs and Ham.
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Or in a house, or with a mouse?
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Pretty sure this would be an example of sea lioning.
Everything he’s said was addressed before he even said it. Not referencing him directly so he doesn’t get the mention increment.
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“No, that is not admissible. I need to see your long-form Certificate of Caesarian Birth.”
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and to that point…I am not even advocating taking them away…I am merely not against it or feel “saddened” by it as if the rest of us are somehow lessened as a species by it.
It being one of the last items on the list is exactly where I am perfectly fine with it being.
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BS. A ca. 2000 NYT article that describes the INS seizing “dozens of fraudulent birth certificates every day” does not indicate a “huge and on-going problem” in 2018 (17 years after 9/11 and the PATRIOT act).* We don’t “all know” that because we understand it’s garbage, and your stuffing words in our mouths is as unwelcome as your stuffing us with straw.
The article is about how easy it was at the time to get a fake birth certificate. Even then people (like the Swiss fellow in the piece) got caught because the days when you could pull the old “Day of the Jackal” method were gone in the U.S. by the 1980s (I was a curious teenager. So sue me).
Your mother can always become a part of the “huge and on-going problem” that “all of us” apparently see. Since it’s so easy and the odds of her getting caught are so minimal it’s worth a shot.
Seriously, if you bothered to go beyond the link to various state Web pages on the subject you’d have seen that many of them specifically address these issues. Unlike the current executive branch of the federal government, most state governments aren’t interested in rendering citizens stateless.
It’s not an easy process, but for someone in your mother’s position they usually make provision for getting a new official birth certificate (for an elderly person a family Bible in combination with sworn statements from themselves and relatives and employers and SS number and tax or DMV records will likely suffice). Once the new birth certificate is in hand the other documents like passports come a lot easier.
Failing that (or dealing with an executive branch that is acting in bad faith) she could also appeal to her Congressional representative, as the woman in the original story did with her Senator.
Only in that the only way to make your case is to tilt at straw men.
[* it doesn’t meet that description in 2000, when the number of people discovered to be holding fraudulent birth certificates (generously assuming 36/day) would have amounted to 0.0047% of the total population of the U.S.]
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While I can’t speak for others, I sure wasn’t suggesting anything be taken away. The only point I was trying to make was that I found it odd that a government agency trusted a self maintained document more than a legal document from another government agency in this particular case.
I honestly agree that a very old bible with many generations of aged ink would be hard to forge. But what happens when a family member decides to re-write all the data in a brand new bible because the old one is falling apart. How does one differentiate that with another family that is falsifying their records for whatever reason?
Again not taking anything away. Just asking the questions that come to mind as this is new to me.
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