Mexican Woman in Mexico Has an American Citizen Baby in America Is That Baby Chicano
MEXICAN WOMEN CROSS BORDER So BABIES Can Be U.S. CITIZENS
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November 21, 1982
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Ilda Leal, a small, shy, 27-yr-quondam woman, is fairly typical of the Mexican women, at present numbering in the thousands, who are coming across the edge every yr to have their babies in the United States.
They come, many of them, so the babe will be born an American citizen, with all the advantages that that brings. But the exercise as well raises thorny bug, ranging from a court case over deportation of parents through fears of unregulated care for the mothers to charges that some of the babies are beingness sold in a black market.
Mrs. Leal is hesitant at get-go, but she grows talkative as she looks on her fine male child, Abiel Leal Jr., dozing and gurgling on the lesser bunk of a double-decker bed in the cramped only spotless fiveroom firm of Margarita Garcia. Mrs. Garcia, a stocky, strong woman of 47 whose broad face is usually split by an equally broad smile, is a lay midwife, or a ''partera,'' every bit she is chosen in Spanish, the just tongue that she and nigh of her clients speak. 'They Accept Better Rights'
After Mrs. Leal became meaning, she began seeing a md in Mexico, she said through an interpreter, ''but then got the thought to have the baby in the Us, because they have better rights, protect the children more than.''
Her married man, she said, had reservations at first about having the baby at all, but she insisted, convincing him that if they e'er wanted to ''set up the papers,'' to get a visa and perhaps eventually apply for United States citizenship themselves, ''information technology would be better if we have an American baby.''
Many women make similar journeys to Mrs. Garcia and nigh 35 other parteras in Cameron Canton, just across the narrow Rio Grande River from Matamoros on the Mexican side. The midwives attract pregnant adult female because, amid other reasons, they charge less than hospitals and offer natural childbirth. Last twelvemonth, the midwives delivered ii,303 babies, most a third of the 7,082 born in Cameron County. Half or more than of those delivered by the parteras, co-ordinate to county health officials and the midwives, were born to Mexican nationals similar Mrs. Leal.
In adjoining Hidalgo County, lay midwives accounted for 1,095 deliveries, or 12.7 pct of the attended births in that canton in 1981; in Webb Canton, which includes Laredo, for 790, or 20.ix percent; in El Paso ane,163, or 9 percentage.
In each county, half the mothers whose deliveries were attended by lay midwives were from outside the canton. ''And most of those, almost all, were folks coming across the border,'' said Tony Grigsby, administrative assistant to Hector Uribe, a Texas State Senator who has been trying for three years to pass legislation providing for the preparation and regulation of midwives.
Except in instances in which the female parent enters the United States illegally, the practice of crossing the border to have a babe is entirely legal.
''If she has a document for entry and at that place is no reason to deny that entry, she can come in,'' said Berl Williams, interim agent in charge of the Immigration and Naturalization Service at Brownsville. ''The local crossing card is good for 72 hours. We don't terminate pregnant women at the edge.''
Although the children are citizens by virtue of beingness born on American soil, their parents are not. Thus, while new Americans similar seven-month-former Abiel Leal have the aforementioned rights and entitlements as whatsoever other citizen, including free public education, Social Security, Medicare, voting, qualification to hold public office and so forth, his parents have little if whatever advantage.
''It does not aid the parents in gaining citizenship,'' said Mr. Williams. A Bus Trip to Brownsville
Even so, Mrs. Leal idea that the opportunities were not bad enough on the twenty-four hours when she began to feel the contractions that signaled that the nativity was near. She walked out of her house in Matamoros and caught a dusty local passenger vehicle to the bridge leading to Brownsville and the U.s.. There she got out and walked beyond, showing the border guards her 72-hour visitor's pass.
At the end of the bridge, she walked the 5 blocks to the home of Mrs. Garcia, who had been recommended to her equally ''the best.'' Mrs. Garcia's picayune firm, crammed with knick-knacks, ceramic dolls and pictures of Jesus, is both home and birth dispensary, with two tiny rooms with a cot in each for delivering babies.
On the front of the house, which is painted bright yellowish and trimmed with bluish, is a vivid blue sign decorated with a pair of storks bearing bundles and the words ''Se Atendien Partos,'' significant ''Births attended here.'' 'I'm Not the Only One'
By the time Mrs. Leal reached the business firm at 7 A.M., the contractions had quickened, and four hours later on, with Mrs. Garcia'due south help, she gave nascence to Abiel.
''I'm non the only i to do this,'' she said during her postnatal visit to Mrs. Garcia today. ''One of my best friends did it last month.''
Every bit Mrs. Leal spoke with Mrs. Garcia, another immature woman, 18-yearold Alicia Torres, arrived at the door. She, too, had crossed the span from Matamoros, heavy with her first child, her dark optics moist with concern, believing the birth was near.
Placing the young woman on 1 of the cots, Mrs. Garcia checked her pulse and blood pressure, talked easily with her in rapid Spanish, and held a stethoscope to her tum, listening to the faint flutter of the heartbeat within. Grinning, she said, ''Viii days.'' 'Hither, the Care Is Better'
Reassured, the adult female said she had come to the midwife to have her baby considering, ''over here, the intendance is better.'' Asked if American citizenship for the kid was also a factor, she shyly said yes. No one is quite sure how many women cross the border to accept their babies each twelvemonth, but it is a phenomenon that occurs at major crossing points all along the one,950-mile border betwixt the United States and Mexico.
Until a modify in immigration law in 1977, a kid built-in in the United States could be a sponsoring agent to gain resident status and eventual citizenship for his parents regardless of his age. No Activeness Until Child Is 21
At present that cannot be done until the child is 21 years old. Every bit a result, conflicting parents of American citizens who have no legal reason for remaining in this state are subject to deportation.
Considering of a civil suit brought in Federal District Court in Chicago, a moratorium was declared on such deportations until the question could exist resolved legally.
A proffer by the Reagan Administration that the moratorium might be revoked generated an uproar among Latin Americans. Concluding Mother's Day, there was a protest march by some ii,000 Mexican-Americans in Dallas.
A form action accommodate seeking to stop whatsoever further deportations is at present pending in Federal District Court in Dallas. Medical Questions Raised
There are also serious medical questions too every bit instances of selling birth certificates and allegations of a black market in babies built-in to alien parents.
''Information technology'southward a humongous problem and it's gotten worse,'' said Dr. Jesus Caquias, managing director of the Brownsville Community Health Clinic, whose midwife program, staffed by vi trained nurse-midwives and serving only county residents, almost exclusively Mexican-Americans, is booked through March.
Too the staff midwife program, the clinic provides screening and prenatal and postnatal care to the clients referred past the lay midwives.
Dr. Caquias, who is of Puerto Rican descent and was brought upwards in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of New York City, said: ''When I first came hither, I was appalled by some of the stories I heard about expressionless babies existence carried across the bridge, all sorts of horror stories, the selling of babies. There was no medical back up.'' Screening Established
''A good portion came from the Mexican side and most presented themselves tardily in the trimester,'' he said, speaking of past practices. ''At present nosotros exercise screen them to brand sure none with complications become to the lay midwives.''
''In my opinion,'' he said, ''the midwives are quite competent. Anyone can evangelize a babe. I did it myself in New York equally a cabdriver, on the sidewalk. The problem is when they are presented practically in labor, just to take their infant born here.''
While Dr. Caquias concedes that his worst fears about the midwife program have non been realized, he remains concerned about the lack of training and regulation of the lay midwives.
For the past five years, through local legislation, Brownsville has had a program for training and certifying the lay midwives. Without the certification, they cannot practice in the metropolis.
Still, of 35 lay midwives who enrolled in the program five years ago, just eight remain. The rest simply moved out of the city into the canton, where in that location are no regulations. 'Hang Out a Shingle'
''All y'all accept to do is hang out a due south@h@i@northward@g@l@east and commencement delivering babies,'' said John P. Schaaf, executive director of the Brownsville clinic.
Because of what many consider a poorly regulated system of registering births in Texas, in that location have been some sales of falsified nascency certificates, a method of gaining instant citizenship.
In September, three women, including 29-twelvemonth-old Estelas Guzman Gallegos, one of the city's licensed lay midwives, were sentenced to iii years in prison for selling falsified nascency certificates to thirteen Mexican nationals to make it announced that they were born in Brownsville and were thus American citizens.
The Mexican nationals paid from $300 to $2,400 for the imitation documentation. 'Black Marketplace' Acts Charged
Health officials and others hither say that the legal authority of the lay midwives to fill out nativity certificates has led to traffic in ''blackness-market babies.''
The practice came to calorie-free ii years ago when it was discovered that a lay midwife had accepted a fee of $250 to falsify the birth certificate of a infant girl born to a 19-year-old woman who was an illegal alien.
The midwife testified in court that she had told the mother that the child had died. Instead, the midwife made out a nascence certificate listing another couple, American citizens, as the natural parents, and gave the infant to them. She received a fee of $250, and another $250 was given to the Mexican female parent.
In another such case, a female parent who had sold her child to an American couple and was receiving a monthly payment decided she wanted the child back and went to the authorities. 'Style to Make Extra Income'
No one has determined the extent of the black marketplace in babies born to aliens, many unmarried, simply Dr. Caquias at the Brownsville Community Health Clinic said a few unscrupulous midwives plainly saw it as ''a skillful way to make some extra income - an agreement betwixt the female parent and the partera.''
Despite medical problems and other abuses, Dr. Caquias and other medical people hither say the lay midwife system is largely benign, if properly regulated, specially because almost midwives accuse from $150 to $200, every bit against well-nigh $800 for a hospital birth attended by a physician.
Likewise, many Hispanic women take far more conviction in the midwives than they practice in doctors and hospitals. Another factor is that many mothers adopt a natural nascency. Parteras use no drugs - ''no aspirin, no nothing,'' said Mrs. Garcia, a trained nurse who is regarded as ane of the best of the Brownsville midwives.
A one-half-mile away from Mrs. Garcia's home, some other midwife, Josefina Salinas, a second-generation partera whose mother delivered babies until she was 79, more than than 4,000 of them, had just delivered Mario Alberto Flores, the beginning child of 19-yr-old Rosaura and Alfred Flores.
For Mrs. Flores, an American citizen, the attractions of the midwife were tradition and personal preference. ''I wanted to know how information technology felt,'' she said, looking at nine and a half pound Mario sleeping contentedly on a cot nether the watchful heart of Mrs. Salinas.
''Everybody told me it was going to be hard,'' she said. ''It wasn't. I am happy.''
Mexican Woman in Mexico Has an American Citizen Baby in America Is That Baby Chicano
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/21/us/mexican-women-cross-border-so-babies-can-be-us-citizens.html