Mexican

Lawsuit alleges US passport procedure discriminates against Mexican-Americans

A group of American citizens from Texas' Rio Grande Valley filed suit against the US Department of State (DOS), alleging they had been denied passports because they are of Mexican descent and were delivered by midwives.

According to a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the DOS effectively denies passport applications by "demanding that these passport applicants furnish a litany of additional documents to substantiate their citizenship and qualification for a passport" and later arbitrarily deeming the applications abandoned despite proof of citizenship. Robin Goldfaden, an attorney for the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, commented:

Based on blanket race-based suspicion, the State Department is sending this select group of passport applicants on a veritable scavenger hunt and then refusing to issue them passports without a fair examination of their individual cases.

Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that the alleged practice violates the Administrative Procedure Act, as well as the Constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.

The number of passport applications has soared since new border-crossing requirements were enacted as part of the the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) established by that law requires American citizens to show a passport when re-entering the US, rather than simply declaring their citizenship orally.

(Published by Jurist - September 11, 2008)