It’s a valid I.D.

Opinion: September 15, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By Ed Morales

McClatchy-Tribune

If you were born a U.S. citizen in Puerto Rico and you try to use your birth certificate as a valid form of identification, you may be out of luck in some states, and that’s wrong.

In Ohio, there was recently a report that a young man applying to take a GED exam was denied a photo ID by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles because he tried to use his birth certificate. In Tennessee, a state official tried to take away a Puerto Rican birth certificate from a child, even though that state has not officially announced a policy of not accepting the certificates. In Georgia, Puerto Rican birth certificates have been seized.

Because of a questionable policy enacted by the Puerto Rican government, all birth certificates issued on the island will be invalidated.

All Puerto Ricans born on the island, who are automatically U.S. citizens, have been instructed to apply for new birth certificates that will be made more “secure” through unspecified means. The law was intended to go into effect on July 1 but its implementation was extended until Sept. 30.

The policy was originally justified by the Puerto Rican government as a remedy to what they characterized as a massive wave of identity fraud. They used a wildly inaccurate statistic, claiming that phony Puerto Rican birth certificates were used in 40 percent of all cases of identity theft in the United States.

Small footnote

It is true that Puerto Rican birth certificates are more widely used on the island, often duplicated several times to serve various institutions and bureaucracies. As a result, some copies may wind up in the wrong hands and be used for identity and passport fraud in the United States. But these cases are a small footnote to a vast array of identity fraud cases involving phony birth certificates, driver’s licenses and other official forms of identification issued by every state in the union.

Puerto Ricans, who have been U.S. citizens since 1917, do not deserve to have their birth certificates invalidated.

Every state should honor them, and the Puerto Rican government should change its policy.

Ed Morales is the author of “Living in Spanglish.” He wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services