Houston woman on her fight to get her birth certificate

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]For one Houston woman, she has no record of her birth and no document proving where she came from. It's a missing piece of paper that could determine whether she and others like her have a voice at the ballot box.

[00:00:10]>> ABC13's Sarah Al-Shaikh shows us the hurdles this woman's facing just to prove she exists new at 10.

[00:00:18]These are things that I was able to find.

[00:00:21]>> of documents. My shot record, immunization. Each one marking a different part of Barbara Brown's life.

[00:00:28]My marriage life. But one crucial moment is missing. The beginning, her birth certificate. I know I was born, I'm here. I'm a person and I just feel less than to be honest with you. Brown was born in the 1950s by a midwife in East Texas. Back in the woods. Yeah, I was born there. That was no fault of mine or whatever. These were grandmothers, aunties, you know, no schooling.

[00:00:57]They just knew that they could you know, birth these babies.

[00:01:02]They didn't know how to fill out any forms and nobody cared enough. It was the Jim Crow era, a period when many black Americans were denied equal access to hospitals. Systemic discrimination and segregation often meant official records were incomplete or never created at all.

[00:01:20]>> A lot of records that may not have been kept because of circumstance of so many of the black and brown babies having to be delivered by midwives in someone's home. And the midwife was responsible for getting that birth record recorded.

[00:01:37]Anything could happen between the birth of the baby and getting that record recorded. For Brown, that missing record now catching up with her. She's trying to get a passport while also racing to renew her driver's license.

[00:01:50]>> These are the letters that they keep sending me from the passport office telling me that they're not processing it now because they're still missing documents. A cycle of paperwork, rejection, and frustration. I give them what I have and they said, >> [music] >> "Nope. Not good enough."

[00:02:12]What? Now she waits after sending in more paperwork hoping this time is different. She's also preparing to apply for a delayed birth certificate, a process hundreds of other Texans go through each year. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, more than 780 people applied last year and already more than 160 this year. The state agency says some are even forced to go to court because they don't have enough documentation to get their delayed birth certificate. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard, but And without that, people like Brown could face new barriers under proposals like the Save America Act, a proposed federal bill aiming to require people to provide proof of US citizenship when registering to vote like a passport or birth certificate. The bill passed the US House of Representatives and is currently in the Senate.

[00:03:03]>> They are American citizens, but this is a a big obstacle and it's simply because of the circumstances under which they were born. Everything that I'm doing is costing me money. The cost of trying to get those documents adding up for Brown.

[00:03:18]That's not a good feeling and I want to get emotional because I won't. And so does the emotional toll.

[00:03:26]But through it all, her faith keeps her centered. And my prayers work. That's the only thing that keeps me grounded.

[00:03:34]Holding on to hope that one day soon she'll finally have what's been missing all along. It's going to help more meaning to me.

[00:03:44]It's a It's said delayed, but it's okay.

[00:03:48]It's going to show me a key to everything that comes next, a single piece of paper years in the making.

[00:03:56]It'll be at the top. It'll be at Oh, yes.

[00:04:01]Sarah Al-Shaikh, ABC13 Eyewitness News.

[00:04:05]Well, we did get some good news from Mrs. Brown today. She says the passport office confirmed that her application was approved and she should get her passport by next week. She says the next thing on her to-do list is to apply for her delayed birth certificate.