American Military News by Molly Hennessy-Fiske 11/29/2019
Raul Rodriguez had worked for U.S. Customs for 18 years when internal investigators confronted him last year with a document he had never seen before: His Mexican birth certificate.
Rodriguez, 51, a customs officer in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, felt the blood drain from his face. He had lived in the United States as long as he could remember and had no idea he was actually born across the border in Matamoros, Mexico.
“It was my worst fear,†he said Friday in an interview at his San Benito home.
The Navy veteran was not charged with a crime but he was fired by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in July, lost his health insurance and had his residency application rejected this month. He and his wife, Anita, 54, a Homeland Security immigration officer, hope he gets to keep his retirement benefits.
For generations, Mexicans living on the border have obtained second U.S. birth certificates for their children, often from a midwife, so the youths could attend school in the U.S. Those whose passports were later flagged would apply for citizenship or legal residency.
In recent years, that has become more difficult, even for federal employees such as Rodriguez.
Texas officials have made it more difficult to obtain birth certificates and flagged hundreds as suspicious — 246 since the start of this year alone. Many were submitted by South Texas midwives. The midwife who signed Rodriguez’s U.S. birth certificate was implicated in several other cases before she died in 2005, according to federal court records.
More:
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/11/us-customs-officer-loses-job-and-citizenship-over-his-mexican-birth-certificate/
