Teen Alecia Pennington can't prove her identity

[al66pine]

An attorney will immensely help sorting this out....
One of my kids was a home birth. Our midwife could not file paperwork to initiate the birth certificate, or SSN. (We were told this is a state law to prevent fraud.)We had to bring our child in person, both parents, along with the midwife's certification, in order to initiate the state birth certificate.
....requests, from parents, kids, and teens who proudly state they are "homeschooled, no birth certificate, no SSN" looking for pen pals, etc. I think this is more common than anyone knows.

. sbm bbm

bbm1
'Bringing child in person.' To where? State or county office affiliated w vital stats compilation for state?
I'm not sure how this would help prevent or reduce fraud.
What kind? Phantom children getting food stamps, WIC, general 'relief.' Or more along lines of fed income tax benefits? Or other?
Not doubting your post, just curious. Any links explaining home birth & midwife& B/Ctf. procedure for your or any state?

bbm2
Every day on W/S,I learn something new. Tying in w certain religions? Or certain 'political' groups?

Thx in adv.

 

[Donjeta]

How about DNA tests? That would prove she's the child of her parents, and she was born, obviously....

 

[1&2&3]

In light of questions discussed such as did her parents include her on tax returns, can she call the SS 800 number or go to local office to inquire if she has a SS number that her parents did not tell her about?

It has been stated the parents have 8 children. Who in their right mind is not claiming them as deductions on taxes? Of course, the parents could tell the children their last name is Pennington when actually it is not. By keeping the children "under their wings", they have little if any outside interactions, so no one would know what the real name was. Sounds like a crazy idea, but what we have heard regarding this family, it would fit right in. Therefore, no one could check up on them as the Penningtons don't exist. JMO.

 

[MyBelle]

. sbm bbm

bbm1
'Bringing child in person.' To where? State or county office affiliated w vital stats compilation for state?
I'm not sure how this would help prevent or reduce fraud.
What kind? Phantom children getting food stamps, WIC, general 'relief.' Or more along lines of fed income tax benefits? Or other?
Not doubting your post, just curious. Any links explaining home birth & midwife& B/Ctf. procedure for your or any state?

bbm2
Every day on W/S,I learn something new. Tying in w certain religions? Or certain 'political' groups?

Thx in adv.

If the beliefs of this family are tied to religious reasons, there usually is some sort of baptismal record of a birth. The grandparents also may be of help. The folks in this case seemed to be flying under the radar for law enforcement purposes, imo. Their daughter is now shining a very white light on them.

 

[SeekingJana]

Their parents' website "Pennington Point"is known to me through a Duggar family snark site, FreeJinger.org ( which is also mentioned upthread).
The girl is the bio child of the parents, as are her siblings. Part of the extremely conservative Christian movement and probably Quivverfull movement as well. ( The two often go hand in hand).
They don't attend A church, they have " church at home" due to the number of children and the fact that the mother is almost always pregnant or breast- feeding.

Think " Duggars" x 10 in the strange department.
There are a lot more " out there" fundies than the Duggars. This family is one of them.
Also, it has occurred to me that " Lori Ruff" could have come from a family similar to this one and needed to escape, then establish ID.
She didn't do it legitimately, probably because she had a book on how to obtain ID fraudulently ( which was quicker to do back then but NOT NOW).

The process of ID changed with 9/11. When I moved to Texas with a valid Driver's License and ID from another state just after 9/11, I still had to go home to dig up the SIXTH legal document that proved my ID. I can tell you that from a Caucasian female entering middle age with nothing to hide point of view, the requirements at the TX DMV were excessive and extremely annoying. Hubby, who has top Pentagon security clearance, had to go back home for our Marriage License as part of HIS ID.

NUTS. This girl needs a very good attorney versed in this procedure, and they will have to start from scratch and go forward. Same with her siblings if they ever want to get out of the family's " protection" for good.

 

[K_Z]

. sbm bbm

bbm1
'Bringing child in person.' To where? State or county office affiliated w vital stats compilation for state?
I'm not sure how this would help prevent or reduce fraud.
What kind? Phantom children getting food stamps, WIC, general 'relief.' Or more along lines of fed income tax benefits? Or other?
Not doubting your post, just curious. Any links explaining home birth & midwife& B/Ctf. procedure for your or any state?

bbm2
Every day on W/S,I learn something new. Tying in w certain religions? Or certain 'political' groups?

Thx in adv.

I'm a little short of time right now, so will post more later. Yes, birth certificate fraud has become a problem in many states. In my state, there was an investigative report a few years ago that uncovered some women claiming more than one birth at home in 12 months time, and trying to obtain BC with a fraudulent home birth witness signature.

The BC fraud is commonly used to procure a false identity for the purpose of obtaining fraudulent welfare and SSI payments. Even after requirements were changed to actually physically produce the infant when applying for a birth certificate at county offices, the same infant was sometimes passed around within groups of fraudsters, so they had a new baby to bring in.

Here is a dept of HHS report on BC fraud.

http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-07-99-00570.pdf

Kid's passports are only good for 5 years, instead of the 10 years for adult passports. My oldest Is on her third PP, and my youngest on her first. Each time we renew, both my husband and I must physically appear, along with the child, and our identity documents. If only one parent appears, there is a boatload of additional paperwork that must be done to establish identity and permission of the non-appearing parent, divorce decrees, custody determinations, etc.

I'll find and put up more links later.

 

[Ausgirl]

I'll say what I said there.. It's Creepy the whole thing is Creepy!!

Big thumbs up to that!

 

[mom2six]

I agree with other posters that this kind of thing is far more common than people think, and not always tied to religious groups. I have had most of our babies at home and even work as a home birth assistant for a time, and some people do request not to have the birth certificate filed*. If you do some research on unassisted home birth, you will also find that some of these folks do not want to be registered. I have found this far more common among what you might classify as 'hippie' folks or those rebelling against our current tax code. When they do this, they are informed that they will not be able to claim the children as dependents, and they don't.

Having recently inexplicably lost all of our family's social security cards and had to jump through the hoops of trying to get them reissued, it is not at all easy without a recent school record or doctor record. She could probably make a doctor's appointment to be seen, which would supply her the need patient demographic, but I have heard that with the Obamacare laws, being seen without insurance is getting tougher.

*Legally, in our state, the midwife is required to file. What at least one midwife I have heard does after filling out the form, is leave it in the parents' mailbox (so technically mailed) and they will remove it from the mailbox after the midwife leaves.

 

[K_Z]

Midwife birth registrations were also identified as an area of concern. Midwives provide a valuable service in insuring the healthy delivery of children and accurate registration of births. However, out-of-hospital births attended by midwives have raised concerns. Sixteen State registrars indicate they have encountered problems specifically linked to midwife birth registration. Our discussions with Federal, State, and local staff during our onsite visits indicate that problems associated with midwife registrations are concentrated along the United States-Mexico border. In fact, midwife registration has become such a problem in one border city we visited that they now require a police officer to be called to the scene shortly after any midwife delivery to verify that the birth actually occurred in the United States. All 41 States that allow midwives to register births have procedures and guidelines in place for such registration, but only 17 of those States require information in addition to or different from that required for hospital births. The additional information required to register midwife births in these States can include attendant affidavits, prenatal and/or post-partum records, and notarized statements or other documentation verifying the birth took place. In addition, some States require that midwives provide documentation that the mother lived in the State at the time the birth occurred.

http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-07-99-00570.pdf (From 2000; note that all states do not allow midwife registrations. About 9 or 10 states do not recognize lay midwives at all in statute. Legitimate traditional midwives usually know what the process for BC application is in their state, and comply, so as not to lose their registration privileges.)

Here is an older 1988 government report on BC fraud. A lot of progress was made from 1988-2000, and a lot more in the past 15 years, as states have centralized and standardized their BC process and tightened up the application process.

http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oai-02-86-00001.pdf

Basically, for fundamentalist and other politically motivated families with children who "eschew" legal birth documentation, they can go largely undetected as long as they remain cloistered from mainstream society. These families largely expect their children to follow in their lifestyle of separatism, so the lack of documents is not an issue if that happens. But when a child seeks to break from that imposed lifestyle as a young adult, and say, wants to get a driver license or go to college, military service, certain jobs, that's when difficulties can occur.

Other groups that are labeled fundamentalist, often are quite motivated to document child births with birth certificates, such as the FLDS groups. Because only one man-woman marriage is deemed legal, co-habiting FLDS polygamists want/ need the welfare benefits for their large families, and for that and other reasons, they are willing to legally register births. (The non-legally married "wives" usually register as single parents.)

As the 2 government reports above make clear, the problem of fraudulent BCs has largely been a problem of illegal immigrants and crime rings. It's also a bit of an issue in communities of urban legal citizens where welfare has been a way of life for many there for more than one generation-- the desire to fabricate another child to increase income and benefits.

 

[stormshine]

More tidbits about the tax lawyer dad I was able to dig up. His law degree is from an unaccredited "biblical" correspondence school in California. He is only a member of the bar in California (which, I believe is the only state which accepts law degrees from unaccredited schools). So although his webpage advertises him as a tax lawyer in Texas, he's not actually admitted to the bar there.

 

[MyBelle]

http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-07-99-00570.pdf (From 2000; note that all states do not allow midwife registrations. About 9 or 10 states do not recognize lay midwives at all in statute. Legitimate traditional midwives usually know what the process for BC application is in their state, and comply, so as not to lose their registration privileges.)

Here is an older 1988 government report on BC fraud. A lot of progress was made from 1988-2000, and a lot more in the past 15 years, as states have centralized and standardized their BC process and tightened up the application process.

http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oai-02-86-00001.pdf

Basically, for fundamentalist and other politically motivated families with children who "eschew" legal birth documentation, they can go largely undetected as long as they remain cloistered from mainstream society. These families largely expect their children to follow in their lifestyle of separatism, so the lack of documents is not an issue if that happens. But when a child seeks to break from that imposed lifestyle as a young adult, and say, wants to get a driver license or go to college, military service, certain jobs, that's when difficulties can occur.

Other groups that are labeled fundamentalist, often are quite motivated to document child births with birth certificates, such as the FLDS groups. Because only one man-woman marriage is deemed legal, co-habiting FLDS polygamists want/ need the welfare benefits for their large families, and for that and other reasons, they are willing to legally register births. (The non-legally married "wives" usually register as single parents.)

As the 2 government reports above make clear, the problem of fraudulent BCs has largely been a problem of illegal immigrants and crime rings. It's also a bit of an issue in communities of urban legal citizens where welfare has been a way of life for many there for more than one generation-- the desire to fabricate another child to increase income and benefits.

All births are required by state statute to be registered. There is no religious reason not to register a birth and for hundreds of years, churches have recorded them.

There is only one reason to break that law and hide the birth of a child: to prevent the child being taken away by CPS. It took years to nail Warren Jeffs and what triggered the investigation was an anonymous phone call to CPS. Hundreds of women and children were removed under a court order and it was discovered Jeffs was running a cult that routinely practiced sexual abuse.

JMO

 

[MyBelle]

More tidbits about the tax lawyer dad I was able to dig up. His law degree is from an unaccredited "biblical" correspondence school in California. He is only a member of the bar in California (which, I believe is the only state which accepts law degrees from unaccredited schools). So although his webpage advertises him as a tax lawyer in Texas, he's not actually admitted to the bar there.

The only tax law he seems to be practicing is filing lawsuits on behalf of himself and his wife against the IRS for investigating what could be a shady corporation tax evasion scam. Based on this, I think chances are great that his daughter has a SS# and it has been "borrowed" by dear old dad.

http://courtweb.pamd.uscourts.gov/CourtWebSearch/txwd/05799626.pdf

 

[K_Z]

How I Said No to the Automatic Social Security Number

http://strike-the-root.com/3/scarmig/scarmig1.html

 

[MyBelle]

http://strike-the-root.com/3/scarmig/scarmig1.html

Registering a birth with the state is mandatory but applying for a SS# is not.

You don’t have to apply for a Social Security number for your child at the hospital, but it’s generally easier if you do. If you wait and apply later at a Social Security office, you must provide proof of your child’s U.S. citizenship and age, such as a birth certificate, and wait for Social Security to verify the record with the office that issued it, which could take up to 12 weeks. Children age 12 or older must appear in person for a mandatory interview at a Social Security office in order to have a number assigned to them.

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs...hy-we-assign-social-security-numbers-at-birth

 

[Mountaingazer]

Lol I was a home birth and didn't get a SS # until we moved to another state for a year and I needed it to start kindergarten. My parents applied for mine and my two little sisters' all at the same time, so even though I am older we all have consecutive numbers, and theirs come before mine. I think at the time Vermont did not require a SS# to attend school so there was no real need to do it until we moved to a state that required them.

I hope Alecia is able to get this all figured out quickly and is able to start living her life as she wants to live it. There certainly seems to be some shadiness on her father's part.

 

[K_Z]

Registering a birth with the state is mandatory but applying for a SS# is not.

You don’t have to apply for a Social Security number for your child at the hospital, but it’s generally easier if you do. If you wait and apply later at a Social Security office, you must provide proof of your child’s U.S. citizenship and age, such as a birth certificate, and wait for Social Security to verify the record with the office that issued it, which could take up to 12 weeks. Children age 12 or older must appear in person for a mandatory interview at a Social Security office in order to have a number assigned to them.

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs...hy-we-assign-social-security-numbers-at-birth

I'm more than aware of the need to appear in person to apply for the SSN for a child under age 12. Despite a year of pre-adoption paperwork, including a pre-approval from USCIS, as well as a preliminary SSN application for a number, where we were required to have the name and complete spelling for our internationally "to be adopted" child (and we were warned not to change the spelling, or it would delay the process later), I still was required to appear in person at a local SS Office for "the interview". I couldn't do that until AFTER I had the court decree, state BC in hand, and formal citizenship documents.

An interesting twist to my personal story of spending about 4-5 hours in the waiting room (my child was under age 12, so I came without her.)

First, I had an actual appointment time before I ever went, which meant nothing once I arrived. I had to enter a line to be assigned an interpreter. I tried to bypass that line, since I'm a native English speaker and born in the U.S.-- but no, I spent almost 90 min in that process alone, just to be allowed to decline an interpreter, because I am already fully fluent in English.

When I was finally called for my "interview", the SS clerk kept trying to sign my child up for SSI benefits at the same time as processing the application just for the SSN. She actually had to call a supervisor, because she didn't know how to "just" process a new SSN for a child, without also co-applying for SSI benefits. She had literally never done that before, according to her, and had worked there for years. I actually had to insist that at the present time, my child DIDN'T qualify for any benefits, and I wasn't seeking any, and the child was already adopted, and not a foster child, and had not ever been a foster child in the U.S. She didn't know what to make of that. It as literally as if they had never heard of international adoption before, or someone "only" needing a SS number, and not applying for benefits. Quite interesting and frustrating-- and I relayed my experience to our adoption agency later. So that's my experience with "the interview".

 

[Donjeta]

From March:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...er-citizenship-is-inspiring-a-new-texas-bill/


The bill, inspired by Pennington’s campaign, would address some of the problems she says she encountered when she set out to prove her own citizenship. It would allow individuals to petition for a delayed birth certificate in the county where they live, rather than in the county in which they were born. It would also make it a misdemeanor for a parent to refuse to sign an affidavit to help their child obtain a delayed birth certificate.

 

[wendybtn]

It used to be fairly common that wealthier people hid assets under their dependents SS#. I think the laws on that have changed but it would not surprise me if this semi-con man dad used her number then had to destroy all the paperwork to avoid being arrested for breaking some other law. Sociopathic personalities are not all killers and rapists.

 

[al66pine]

From March:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...er-citizenship-is-inspiring-a-new-texas-bill/
The bill, inspired by Pennington’s campaign, would address some of the problems she says she encountered when she set out to prove her own citizenship. It would allow individuals to petition for a delayed birth certificate in the county where they live, rather than in the county in which they were born. It would also make it a misdemeanor for a parent to refuse to sign an affidavit to help their child obtain a delayed birth certificate.

Donjeta,
Thx for the updated story.

 

[KaaBoom]

Alecia Pennington has existed her entire life — but until today she wasn’t able to prove it.

Alecia’s grandmother, Lee Southworth, who helped Alecia break free from her family, says they have put in “thousands of hours” of work thus far attempting to obtain Alecia’s birth certificate. And today, after the enactment of HB 2794, their work has finally reached a joyous ending. This morning Alecia went to Williamson County Court House and received the birth certificate she has fought so long to obtain. “So happy and excited this morning!” she exclaimed on Facebook. “Finally able to prove legal identity!” Alecia extended her sincere thanks to her lawyer William Morris and and Representative Marsha Farney: “You guys are rockstars,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Alecia pennington, “the girl who doesn’t exist,” can now prove she does