Originally Posted by
cordelli
Post six of the first thread linked where it is clearly mentioned.
That thread was premised on something entirely different than this and the inclusion of this item there is barely even tangential (if even that) when it comes to the premise of that thread and the other one.
Originally Posted by cordelli
As I said, it's not a big deal and that's probably why nobody commented on it.
I doubt most people have much if any clue about how the premise of this thread is distinct from that of those threads about questionnaires. A lot of things get missed when things get inappropriately muddied and muddled together.
Originally Posted by cordelli
Please, explain why this is such a huge issue? For most people who need a birth certificate, they will need to get a long form one instead of a short form one. It's inconvenient but it's not the end of the world.
It's nothing to do with inconvenience or difficulty/impossibility to present a document -- it has to do with "why" the change and what the change has achieved and/or will achieve.
Whether it's a huge issue or not, that's in the eye of the beholder. Some would argue that any issue where the government increases the requirement for primary evidence of citizenship is a big issue while others would argue that so very few people relative to the population of passport applicants would be impacted that it's a non-issue.
Originally Posted by cordelli
The number of people who are applying for a passport and can not present a birth certificate with the required information is estimated to be a tiny faction of the people applying (75,000 out of the 14 million who apply every year), which is why they have the questionnaire for those few people.
I'm not sure why you even bring that up. As I was indicating above, this change is independent of the changes that led to the questionnaire.
Originally Posted by cordelli
Why would that be? When you apply for a renewal your current passport serves as proof of citizenship. If there are people who need to present a birth certificate at time of renewal, that's also a miniscule amount of people.
A current passport doesn't necessarily get accepted as proof of citizenship even when identity of the person is confirmed -- that such is a rather rare exception in terms of frequency doesn't really change a thing nor does it explain matters about the change in requirement that is the premise of this thread.
[That only a very tiny sliver of a fraction of a percent of people are being told to present a birth certificate at time of renewal does nothing to highlight what motivated the change which is the premise of this thread (but which is not the premise of the other two threads).]
The government cares about parentage and family relationships for reasons that have nothing to do with what prompted the questionnaires that are the premise of the approaches highlighted in the two threads whose URLs you kindly included here.
Many if not most "short form" birth certificates-- they are commonly called "birth certificate abstracts" as that's what they are-- contain all the information required. A quick google image search shows that both the NY and HI "short form" birth certificates contain all this information. I can personally vouch for Cook County and the State of Illinois-- abstracts from them have this information and always have. This 'new' rule provides no indication at all that State is no longer accepting certified birth abstracts that have all of the required information, or that they plan not to accept them in the future.
That's very representative of the state of affairs. It also ought to help to prompt questions about what drove the change that is the premise of this thread and some other things related to that.