Puerto Ricans Blindsided by New Birth Certificate Law
By Alicia Cruz The Black Urban Times Millions of native Puerto Ricans living outside of La Isla were blindsided after learning that their birth certificates will become invalidated after July 1, 2010. More than 4.1 million natives residing in the United States have until July 1 to file for new birth certificates after Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, enacted a new law meant to curve identity theft in December. Raids executed last year exposed a criminal ring that had stolen thousands of birth certificates and other identifying documents from several different schools in Puerto Rico. This has posed a serious security risk for U.S. officials since the owners of the stolen documents could have entered the U.S. under the assumed identities and are now living undetected. As much as 40 percent of the identity fraud in the U.S. involves birth certificates from Puerto Rico, according to State Department officials. The black market value of a Puerto Rican birth certificate has risen between $...