Plan Aims to Save American-Born Children in Mexico from Legal Limbo Nina Lakhani - The Guardian
go to original September 21, 2016

A family who returned from California after the father, right, was deported, try to get their children’s US birth certificates stamped by Mexican authorities in Malinalco, Mexico (Dario Lopez-Mills/AP)

A new scheme to ease bureaucratic obstacles blocking access to health and education for hundreds of thousands of American-born children living in Mexico has been launched by the US and Mexican governments.

About 550,000 children born in the US are currently living across Mexico as a result of an increased number of deportations and voluntary repatriations driven by the US economic downturn and family obligations. These children face an array of legal and social difficulties assimilating into their new lives, including language and culture barriers, bullying, mental health problems and long delays getting into school.

Children born overseas to one or both Mexican parents are automatically entitled to Mexican nationality under the constitution, and should be guaranteed equal access to government services. But until now, unless parents registered their child’s birth in a Mexican consulate before leaving the US, obtaining the required documents once back in Mexico has been expensive and burdensome.

As a result, at least 300,000 US-born children have not registered their Mexican nationality, according to the Mexican national statistics institute. These children are often excluded from school, scholarships, social programmes and even basic health services such as vaccinations.

This is because Mexican civil registries required the original US birth certificate to be sent to the state where the child was born for an official stamp – known as an – and an official translation. This has proven most difficult for parents living in remote rural parts of Mexico with limited access to the internet, credit cards and courier services.

Read the rest at The Guardian

Related: Uprooted in Mexico: The US Children 'Returned' to a Country They Barely Know (The Guardian)

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