Thursday, July 01, 2010
Fraudulent birth certificates have become such a problem in Puerto Rico that government officials have taken the drastic step of invalidating all such documents issued before July 1 of this year. The 4 million residents of the island, plus the 1.2 million Puerto Ricans living in the United States, will have to apply for new birth certificates to prove their identity and remain eligible for government benefits.
Identity theft evolved into a huge problem for Puerto Rico in part because of local habits of using original, certified copies of birth certificates as if they were business cards or resumes, resulting in the documents becoming scattered throughout the country.
The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security estimate that 40% of all U.S. passport fraud cases in recent years involved Puerto Rican birth certificates.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Born Again? Puerto Rico's Birth Certificate Fiasco (by Devin Dwyer, ABC News)
Puerto Rico’s New Birth Certificate Law (Law 191 of 2009 – As Amended) (Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration)
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