Identity
Articles tagged Identity from The VRO Blog.
When the Birth Certificate Does Not Exist: What USCIS Accepts Instead
The federal rule for an unavailable civil document is a ladder with three rungs that must be climbed in order. Applicants routinely jump to affidavits, and that is what produces a request for evidence.
Leaving Prison Without a Birth Certificate
The ID you need to get documents is the document you do not have. One state legislated a way out of that loop, and a federal rule quietly undercuts the paper it hands you at the gate.
Found as a Baby: How the Law Builds a Birth Certificate When Nobody Knows Who You Are
When an infant of unknown parentage is found, the person with the legal duty to report is the finder. That report becomes the birth record. Two states, two clocks, and a rule that can erase the record later.
Your Documents Are Perfect and State Can Still Refuse Your Passport
The grounds for refusing a passport are a published list in federal regulation, and most of them have nothing to do with your birth certificate. If your denial letter cites one of them, ordering another copy of anything will not fix it.
You Had a Passport Once and Can't Find It, and You Have No Birth Certificate Either
The State Department has a remedy for an applicant who can produce neither a passport nor a birth certificate: a search of its own passport files. It costs $150 for records issued before 1994, and for anything issued since, you may pay nothing at all.
When the Certified Copy Is Free by Law: Fee Waivers for Survivors, Foster Youth, and Young People Without Housing
Some state laws require the registrar to issue a certified birth certificate without a fee: to people fleeing family violence, to foster youth, to homeless young people, sometimes without parental consent. The trigger is an attestation, not a discount code. Texas and California, verified.
Born in Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or American Samoa: Which Birth Record You Get and What It Proves
A territorial birth certificate is a U.S. vital record, not a foreign one. For four territories it proves citizenship at birth. For one, it proves something different, and the difference matters.
North Carolina Adoptees Can Now Get a Birth Certificate at the County Register of Deeds
Senate Bill 248 did not unseal original birth certificates. It let adoptees get their amended certificate at the county, a change the state's own adoptions page still does not mention.
Accents, Tildes and Hyphens: Why Your Name Is Different on Every Document You Own
José on the birth certificate, Jose on the Social Security card, JOSE on the passport. Here is why systems drop diacritics, which mismatches matter, and how to fix them.