The eagerness of the state of Arizona to drive all brown people — legal or illegal — from its territory leads to some really backward moves on behalf of officials, high and low.
Stephen Lemons
Briseira Torres, a U.S. citizen with an un-canceled U.S. birth certificate, despite the bumbling efforts of the Office of Vital Records.
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Add bureaucrats' inherent inability to concede an error to this official policy of ethnic cleansing, enshrined in Senate Bill 1070's dictate of "attrition through enforcement," and you've got a bizarre huckleberry hybrid of a government that resembles Redneck Island crossed with Commie Russia.
Take, for example, the colossal boneheadedness displayed by state officials in the ongoing case of Briseira Torres.
I know, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, these are officials of a state still governed by Governor Jan "We Have Did" Brewer, who recently "endorsed" President Obama by accident while attending the Republican National Convention.
And stupidity, like some other substances best left unmentioned, rolls down hill.
But once Torres was released August 3, following her 4 1/2-month wrongful imprisonment in a Maricopa County jail, I figured Arizona would leave the Glendale mom alone, especially after my column on the case went viral ("Woman Held Because Authorities Thought She Was Illegal," August 9).
Torres, a U.S. citizen with the birth certificate to prove it, had been collared by Arizona Department of Transportation investigator Chris Oberly on March 14 and charged with three counts of forgery.
This, after she tried to pick up the passport she had ordered for her teenage daughter at the federal building downtown.
Oberly and the County Attorney's Office contended that Torres' real name was Brenda Gomez, a Mexican national whose mom fraudulently had obtained a late-registration birth certificate for her when she was a baby.
A former employee with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Oberly testified under oath to a county grand jury that Arizona's Office of Vital Records canceled Torres' U.S. birth certificate in 1999.
As she awaited her date in court, Torres was held non-bondable. See, forgery is a class-four felony in Sand Land, and if authorities think a suspect is in the country illegally, that individual is treated as a murderer and not allowed to make bail.
Torres' lawyers — immigration attorneys Delia Salvatierra and Johnny Sinodis — hit the state's Vital Records Office with a subpoena, seeking all documents the department had for their client.
After weeks of stalling, OVR section manager Robin Glover responded with 18 pages of copies and a sworn statement certifying that they were "all of the documents in possession of the Office of Vital Records" having to do with their client's case.
Significantly, the file contained no indication that Torres' birth certificate had been canceled. Nor was a Mexican birth certificate for Torres in the OVR's file.
With this info, Salvatierra demanded that the case be remanded back to the grand jury.
The judge agreed, noting that during oral arguments the prosecutor had conceded that Torres' Vital Records file "was never obtained [by the County Attorney's Office] and neither the prosecutor nor [investigator Oberly] knew the full contents of that long-form birth certificate."
Deputy County Attorney Daniel Strange — face fully bathed in egg — quickly moved to dismiss the charges without prejudice, meaning he could bring them back later.
However, he later conveyed that he had no intention of doing so.
Smart move, since Torres was considering a lawsuit, as she'd lost her apartment and had been separated from her daughter while wrongfully imprisoned.
I mean, why would any civil servant want to double-down on this idiocy?
Dumb question, as the geniuses at Vital Records have demonstrated.
On August 15, OVR chief Patricia Adams wrote to Briseira Torres (not to "Brenda Gomez," natch) advising her that the OVR had "cancelled and sealed" her birth record in 1999 and had documentation to prove it.
Why didn't the OVR turn over all the documents it supposedly had in response to Salvatierra's previous subpoena?
Why did OVR employee Robin Glover, under oath, previously swear that she was turning over everything in the OVR's possession to Torres' lawyers?
And, here's the biggie, if the OVR had canceled Torres' birth certificate in 1999, as Adams stated in her letter, why had it issued copies of the birth record, most recently on February 2, 2011?
Magnanimously, despite the incompetence displayed by her office, Adams offered Torres the opportunity for a public hearing concerning the canceled birth certificate.
Meantime, Torres' life remained in limbo. She would be unable to re-acquire the ID confiscated by authorities. She had lost her residence while in the slammer, had no job, and no way to hunt for a job or a place to stay.
Fortunately, Torres had Salvatierra, whose head nearly combusted upon seeing Adams' letter. Salvatierra soon contacted the Arizona Attorney General's Office, which acts as the OVR's attorney.
Ultimately, the OVR backtracked and admitted that it had not canceled Torres' birth certificate. The OVR's assigned legal beagle, Assistant Attorney General Don Schmid, stated in one filing that he declined to "support or defend a purported cancellation" of Torres' birth certificate.
Nevertheless, the OVR still wants to cancel Torres' birth certificate.
Why? Well, that's the question I asked Schmid and Glover outside the prehearing conference before Administrative Law Judge Kay Abramsohn in October.
