While the majority of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Mexican, one is Guatemalan and one is Honduran. Many of the plaintiffs left Mexico fleeing violence and partner abuse. One of the plaintiffs was apprehended and detained with her infant daughter shortly after her birth by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Her documents were seized and never returned. Some of the plaintiffs arrived when they were minors, meaning they never had a Mexican driver’s license or electoral card. One of the plaintiffs, who fled violence in Guatemala, was told by the coyote who was moving her group across the border that they should throw their IDs away, because if drug cartel members caught them with identification they would charge them more to cross. According to the lawsuit, the denial of birth certificates affects the ability of families to baptize their children, to send them to school, to travel and prove their relationship to their children, to access social housing and daycare, as well as to access Medicaid, Head Start and other child benefits.

“The objectives of the lawsuit are twofold, first of all to get a birth certificate for these individual children, but more broadly, also to get a clear guidance and a clear statement from the state agency as to what other people in similar situations need to do in order to get a birth certificate,” said Olivares in a phone interview from Alamo, Texas. “What we don’t want is for all these kids to get a birth certificate and then the case is dismissed, but then next month we’re going to be back with the same problem.” Life for undocumented people in the U.S. is difficult, and the denial of birth certificates represents another form of official discrimination against them. “What’s happening now is they’re being discriminated against, even though the child is a citizen and has a constitutional right to a birth certificate, the child and the parent are being discriminated against because they are undocumented,” said Hector Guzman Lopez, who works with Fuerza del Valle Workers’ Center and the South Texas Civil Rights Project.

Increased policing along the entire U.S.-Mexico border has cut the mobility of undocumented people. By way of example, undocumented people cannot leave the Rio Grande Valley without risking their lives. “Undocumented people are essentially trapped to a large degree in the Rio Grande Valley here on the U.S. border, there’s another checkpoint as you go north, and if you don’t have any documents you can’t pass there, you will be picked up and put in a detention center,” said Guzman. “Either you risk your life going through the brush, or you pay somebody to sneak you across, which is very dangerous as well, so most people who are undocumented workers and their families, they stay in the Valley.”