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| FILE - Visitors walk from the Mexican Consulate in Little Rock, Ark., after the grand opening of the building in this Wednesday, April 25, 2007 file photot. The Mexican government on Thursday Jan. 15, 2015 will start issuing birth certificates to its citizens at consulates in the United States, seeking to make it easier for them to apply for U.S. work permits, driver's licenses and protection from deportation. |
SANTA ANA, Calif.
(AP) -- For Mexicans living in the U.S. illegally and hoping to
stay in the country under President Barack Obama's new immigration
policy, things just got one step simpler.
On Thursday, the Mexican government began issuing birth certificates to its citizens at its consulates in the United States.
That
will make it a little easier for Mexicans hoping to obtain U.S. work
permits, driver's licenses and protection from deportation.
Up
until now, Mexico required its citizens to get birth certificates at
government offices in Mexico. Many of those living in this country had
to ask friends and relatives back home to retrieve the paperwork.
Pedro
Zamora, a 52-year-old cook, took advantage of the new program to obtain
his birth certificate at the Mexican consulate in Santa Ana,
California. He plans to apply for a California driver's license this
week.
Before the change took place, Zamora had
to ask his sister-in-law to pick up his son's and daughter's birth
certificates in Colima, Mexico, so they could apply for Obama's
immigration program for those brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
But Zamora said the paperwork got lost in the mail - twice.
"It would take seven or 15 days and there was a risk of losing it," Zamora said.
While
Republicans in Congress are trying to undo Obama's plan to shield
millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. from deportation,
Mexico is trying to help them stay here and continue sending money back
to relatives across the border.
About half of
the 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally are from Mexico,
and immigration experts say roughly 3 million of them could be eligible
under the administration's plan.
Immigrants
will probably need to produce photo identification such as a passport to
apply for the program. And to get a Mexican passport, they need a birth
certificate.
That has proved to be a problem for many Mexican immigrants.
Those
who cross the border illegally to reach the United States rarely carry
documents with them on the treacherous journey, partly to avoid
detection. And some Mexicans born in remote, rural communities do not
make the necessary journey to the nearest government office to start the
process of obtaining a birth certificate.
Mexico's
50 consulates in the U.S. can now access data in Mexico and print birth
certificates here, said Arturo Sanchez, consul for press and commercial
affairs in Santa Ana.
Consulates should be
able to issue birth certificates for nearly all places in Mexico, though
some villages where documents are not digitally recorded may not be
covered, Sanchez said.
The new practice comes
two weeks after California - home to more Mexicans than any other state -
began issuing driver's licenses to immigrants who are in the country
illegally.
After handing out birth
certificates in Santa Ana, Jose Antonio Meade, Mexico's secretary of
foreign affairs, said his government hopes Obama's program moves forward
and that "the gap that today exists between the rights of citizens and
the rights of immigrants every day will continue closing."
Rep.
Duncan Hunter, who represents a San Diego-area congressional district,
complained that U.S. and Mexican policies have combined to send more
people across the border illegally.
"The
administration's position and efforts seem to better align with Mexico's
interests than they do with our own - and that's disappointing," he
said.
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy
studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said she believes Mexico
is trying to make it easier for its citizens to stay here because of the
money they send back.
Mexican migrant workers
living abroad sent home $21.6 billion to their families in 2013,
according to the country's central bank.
Vaughan,
whose organization wants tighter limits on immigration, said ensuring
birth certificates are authentic is critical because they are used to
obtain key identity documents such as passports.
"If
we can trust the Mexican government to do its due diligence and
establish a system with integrity, then this will work," she said. But
she added: "That is a big if."
