
Kansas-born woman told birth certificate not proof of citizenship for passport - selimthegrim
https://www.kctv5.com/news/kansas-woman-told-birth-certificate-wasn-t-enough-to-prove/article_144c19aa-b50f-11e8-94f5-6b921312a97a.html
======
olefoo
This appears to be part of the broader effort to make citizenship conditional
for many more Americans.

The current state of that effort allows for ethnically disparate impacts (
latino populations were less likely to be born in a hospital, so their birth
certificates are more open to challenge ) and due to that disparate impact
also serve as a form of vote suppression.

But do not fool yourself into thinking it's not bad. The normalization of
stripping citizenship creates a corrupt practice that is very tempting to
authoritarians.

~~~
nostrademons
It does make me wonder if shit like this will be the force driving society
away from nation-states to Neal Stephenson-style corporate franchising [1] or
phyles [2]. When it happens to one person, it's a tragedy for them. When it
happens to a lot of people, it's a very large market opportunity - providing
the security, legal, and currency services that the state no longer offers.

This doesn't detract from your point about it being tempting to authoritarians
- this is basically recreating feudalism with modern technology. But it is
interesting that denying citizenship actually _weakens_ the state, by creating
a power & leadership vacuum that some other institution can step into.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Background](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Background)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age#Phyles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age#Phyles)

~~~
mezzode
Phyles primarily based on shared values honestly seem more sensible than
nation-states primarily based on geography (although of course these may
overlap). The latter often seems to lead to the 51% being the decision makers
which leaves the 49% unhappy.

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charlesism
Somewhat off-topic, it depresses me that passport requirements are so
ingrained. Wikipedia:

    
    
        > ...up to World War I, passports were not required, on the whole, for travel 
        > within Europe, and crossing a border was a relatively straightforward 
        > procedure... 
        > During World War I, European governments introduced border passport 
        > requirements for security reasons, and to control the emigration of people 
        > with useful skills. These controls remained in place after the war, becoming 
        > a standard, though controversial, procedure. British tourists of the 1920s 
        > complained, especially about attached photographs and physical descriptions,
        > which they considered led to a "nasty dehumanization"

~~~
larrysalibra
Europe for travel within the Schengen Zone has at least been moving back in
the right direction of no papers required for travel. Meanwhile, in North
America and the Caribbean it was perfectly normal to be able to travel around
with no passport up until just a decade or so ago.

I remember being able to go to visit Canada from the USA with nothing more
than someone asking if you if you are a US citizen.

That freedom to travel is yet another right that was thrown out the door
because of 9/11 via the "Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative" [1] which would
be more aptly named the "Western Hemisphere Restriction of Travel Initiative"

Sad.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Travel_Init...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Travel_Initiative)

~~~
sneak
Just because you don’t need a passport doesn’t mean you can travel without
unambiguously identifying yourself in Schengen. It amounts to the same thing.
It doesn’t matter what identity paperwork you show if it includes your full
name, dob, and a biometric photo.

Try boarding a plane for a domestic flight even inside of one Schengen country
without these things and see how far you get.

~~~
S4M
I traveled a few time within the Schengen space. I was never asked to show any
identity document.

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jjcm
As someone who was born in the US at home and had a delayed birth certificate,
stuff like this worries me. I live overseas at the moment, and if the US one
day decides to not grant me a passport renewal, what happens? Am I not allowed
to return home?

I understand not allowing things like baptism certificates or non-government
recognized birth certificates, but a certificate issued by the state should
never be able to be revoked.

~~~
pvg
You already have the passport. You are right to worry about aggressive
misapplication of policy and an unabashedly nativist administration enabling
it potentially causing some bureaucratic problem. Even a very unpleasant
problem. You're not going to end up in a situation where you are 'not allowed
to return home', though.

~~~
WalterGR
_You already have the passport._

Unless I’m misreading, the person you replied to said, “if the US one day
decides to not grant me a passport renewal”.

~~~
pvg
Any country that's not actually trying to arrest you or otherwise detain you
and where your residence and travel documents have expired will happily put
you in touch with a US Consulate and have you shipped home. Edward Snowden
(just as a really extreme example) can probably be on plane to the US in 24
hours, should he choose to, revoked passport and all.

Your passport is not your citizenship status. It's the latter that grants you
rights and those rights are very difficult to lose. And you can be repatriated
with an expired passport (or no passport).

------
abnry
This seems like government working well. An overzealous governmental employee
denies a valid document, for whatever confused or malicious reason. Denied
person contacts their congress representative. The congress rep gets the issue
fixed.

You can't stop random things going wrong in the government bureaucracy,
especially due to the human factor. If this is, however, indicative of a
general trend of decertification, that is a problem.

~~~
felipemnoa
>>This seems like government working well. An overzealous governmental
employee denies a valid document, for whatever confused or malicious reason.
Denied person contacts their congress representative. The congress rep gets
the issue fixed.<<

Not really. Seems a bit overkill to have to contact your congress
representative to fix a problem like this that never should've been an issue.
In fact, it seems that the government is starting to become a bit overzealous.

Without knowing the statistics of how often stuff like this happens over the
years it is hard to tell. Although I did read an article stating that the
government was ramping up this sort of thing [1]. To me it looks like a very
dangerous trend. Start with just a few cases like this and then ramp it up
little by little. Somebody seems to be boiling the frog slowly.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/us-is-
deny...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/us-is-denying-
passports-to-americans-along-the-border-throwing-their-citizenship-into-
question/2018/08/29/1d630e84-a0da-11e8-a3dd-2a1991f075d5_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.30b7c1dadc85)

~~~
jerkstate
It's kind of like needing to have your post to Hacker News be sufficiently
upvoted to get you Google account reinstated, no?

------
manav
This reminds me of bureaucracy in India. As a foreign-born Indian I tried to
get an OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) which is akin to a lifetime visa
nowadays.

As part of the documentation they eventually required my father's birth
certificate (since he surrendered his original passport). The city did manage
to find his records even though he was born near the time of the
partition/independence.

However, they required a letter from his birth parents who were long since
deceased. They just didn't have the logic in their system to understand this
was a possibility and know what to do.

------
tenken
This has been a requirement for some years now.

"Local" birth certificates, or for example baptismal certificates cannot be
used as I.D. for some years. Their authenticity cannot be verified.

~~~
codezero
According to the article there is no stated policy or rule about that, do you
have a source?

~~~
tzs
OT: I followed the link to the rules given in the article. While there I ended
up on the page that gives rules for passport photos, since I need to get
around to getting one to renew my passport.

One of the rules (added in late 2016) is that you cannot wear glasses in the
photo. However, if "[...] you cannot remove your glasses for medical reasons,
please include a signed note from your doctor with application".

I've never heard of nor can can hypothesize a medical condition that would not
let you remove your glasses while sitting or standing still for a photo.
Anyone have some examples?

~~~
rincebrain
If you needed them {temporarily,permanently} for some medical condition that
rendered your eyes extremely sensitive to certain kinds of light, including,
say, a flashbulb.

I was trying to think of any other reason than photosensitivity, but that's
all that comes to mind.

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self_awareness
Content unavailable due to GDPR. Any mirrors are welcome.

~~~
_jn
From outline: [https://outline.com/RP7Kaw](https://outline.com/RP7Kaw)

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dredmorbius
The problems of decertification are only beginning to be seen & felt. This is
a slumbering monster.

~~~
smilbandit
F'n Miller

~~~
dredmorbius
???

