Life in Limbo: 'Doubly Invisible' Mexican Immigrants Yearn for Identification Amy Lieberman - AlterNet
go to original October 24, 2016

More or Less Dead: Undocumented Immigrants in the USA (Watching the Hawks)

Upwards of 700,000 Mexican immigrants living in the United States lack birth certificates or valid photo identification, according to the Mexico City-based Be Foundation. These are the "doubly invisible," unrecognized in both their native and adopted countries. They represent a portion of the estimated 7 to 10 million Mexicans who live without birth certificates, as the Be Foundation estimates.

"The reason they are not being registered is that up until a year ago, it cost about $45 to register a child, which can be a huge amount for people," said Karen Mercado, president of the Be Foundation, which has lobbied for registration reform in Mexico.

"Now, it's free, but we have all of these people who have been living their lives without any fundamental rights to anything, lacking opportunities. They essentially don't exist," Mercado said.

The problem is universal and not concentrated in Latin America. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa report the lowest rates of birth registration, while just 65 percent of all births are registered globally, according to United Nations figures. Contributing to this trend are the cost to register a child - as once was the case in Mexico - inaccessibility to government offices and lack of awareness.

The challenges of living without any state recognition can infringe upon daily life in the U.S., restricting access to everything from library cards to bus tickets. These effects are felt most acutely among the country's nearly 12 million Mexican immigrants, accounting for its largest percentage of foreign-born residents.

Read the rest at AlterNet

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