Better Ten Go Free
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”
– William Blackstone, English Jurist, 1769
The government of the United States is taking its next step in the “cleansing” of America. The newest twist: revoking the citizenship status of some born along the Texas/Mexico border. These are “natural born” American citizens, having citizenship from birth. They were born in the Rio Grande Valley; their births attended by a mid-wife rather than a doctor or at a hospital. And now, decades later, the US State Department is refusing to accept their birth certificates as proof of citizenship, denying them passports, and the Immigration service is going so far as detaining and trying to deport them.
The problem: there were some mid-wives who lied about exactly which side of the border the child was born on. Not every child delivered was born in Mexico, but not every one was born on the US side either. This is not a new issue: these “births” are now in their thirties; the concern has been around for a while.
So, these thirty-some year olds, whose sole possible crime was to have been born on the wrong side of an artificial geographic line, are now being forced to prove the location of their birth. Their birth certificates won’t work: can they get a utility bill from their mother’s home, or some other external paperwork that shows their birth residence was on the right side of the line? And, of course, their mothers were not wealthy: they were using mid-wives rather than hospitals, and, given the present Administration, they were all Hispanic. Here’s a challenge: prove the residence of your birth, thirty years later. Go find the utility bills from the 1980’s, or the rental bills since these mothers weren’t likely to own their homes: Good Luck.
It then becomes a “guilty until proven innocent” issue, with some of these Americans held in detention, and forced to search unavailable records. And many of them don’t know for sure whether they were born a US citizen or Mexican. The Immigration service (good old ICE) has even gone so far as to deny some of them access to the regular Federal Court system, instead putting them into the Homeland Security run Immigration Courts.
This isn’t the first time the US government has tried to do this; it’s not just the Trump Administration. But unlike earlier efforts, when officials quickly realized the inequity of their actions and stopped, the Trump “ICE Troopers” are moving on, sweeping up the innocent with the guilty. The “guilty” here are guilty of being born in the wrong place; the “fraud” they have committed is one that they don’t even know they’ve done. And the innocent aren’t necessarily sure either.
Clearly the validity of the birth certificate is a failure of the Texas state issuing authority. They didn’t do their job thirty-some years ago. The current enforcement actions have a better than even chance of denying Americans their American citizenship. And unlike the rights we expect for anyone facing court action, these Americans are being found guilty, then forced to prove their own innocence.
We are a nation of laws and beliefs. We believe that to be guilty, one must have the intent to commit an act. And one of our most sacred legal precepts is that we must protect the innocent, even at the risk of freeing some of the guilty. There is no government action more heinous than the punishment of an innocent, our legislatures pay hundred of thousands of dollars to those we inadvertently jail. And we are a nation that claims to be unbiased; but in this action “blind justice” is clearly peeking out to see the color of the accused.
This must stop. None of these individuals are responsible for this “crime,” and even if some of the “guilty” remain American citizens, so be it. This “birth fraud” cannot be undone by the government sweeping up those who have done nothing wrong. But, of course, it won’t stop, at least not until the last bastion of civil rights, the Federal Courts, step in. Meanwhile, America, the home of the free, continues to act out the racists views of its President.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. Mother Theresa