New Birth Certificates Can Now Be Ordered Two Ways On-line:

www.vitalchek.com and www.pr.gov; 

Phone Service Now Available via VitalChek’s 24/7 Bilingual Call Center at (866) 842-6765

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Government of Puerto Rico is expanding services for those seeking the island’s new, more secure birth certificate through a partnership with vital document provider VitalChek, announced Nicole Guillemard, executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA).

“As of July 1, Puerto Rico began issuing new, more secure birth certificates to protect the identity and credit of all people born on the Island.  The Government of Puerto Rico is adding another convenient option for ordering the new certificates, especially aimed at those who need expedited service or those who need to place their order over the phone,” Guillemard said. 

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Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuño today endorsed the “Open America’s Waters Act,” new legislation introduced by U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) to repeal the Jones Act, a 90-year-old measure that was put in place well before the advent of today’s modern, global economy.

The 1920 law known as the Jones Act requires that all goods shipped between American ports be carried by vessels built in the United States and owned and crewed by U.S. citizens. Numerous studies, however, have shown that the restrictions raise shipping costs at the expense of consumers in Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, and other noncontiguous parts of the country due to increased prices paid on goods shipped from the mainland.  A 1988 GAO report cited by Senator McCain indicates that the Jones Act cost Alaskan families between $1,921 and $4,821 annually on goods shipped from the mainland, and local government statistics in 1997 estimated the Act cost every household in Hawaii $3,000.

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http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/puerto-rico-extends-deadline-for-birth-certificates/

By ISOLDE RAFTERY

Puerto Ricans facing the imminent mass invalidation of their birth certificates have received a reprieve from the Puerto Rican government.

People born on the island – including the nearly 1.4 million Puerto Ricans living on the United States mainland, about 300,000 of them in New York –- now have until Sept. 30 to continue to use their old birth certificates.

Last December, in an effort to curb passport fraud, the Puerto Rican legislature created a new, more secure birth certificate that would be available as of July 1. The initial plan was to invalidate all previously issued birth certificates as of the same date. But over the weekend, the government finalized a measure that keeps the old birth certificates valid until Sept. 30, while also making the new certificates available as of Thursday.

“We planned we would give a short period of overlap that we would not announce until the very end,” Kenneth D. McClintock, secretary of state of Puerto Rico, said Monday. “If you announce it early enough, the bureaucracy takes it easy.”

For decades, it was common practice for Puerto Ricans to order a dozen copies of their birth certificates and hand them out to just about anyone – the ballet instructor, the elementary school secretary, the prospective employer.

It seemed a benign practice, one borne of habit more than necessity. But in time, it resulted in rampant fraud.

School break-ins increased as thieves broke into schools to rifle through cabinets for birth certificates, which were sold on the black market for $5,000 to $10,000.

In one study, the American authorities examined 8,000 passport fraud cases and found that 40 percent of them involved Puerto Rican birth certificates (Puerto Ricans are, of course, United States citizens). There were tens of millions of unsecured birth certificates, which Mr. McClintock said made Puerto Ricans vulnerable to identity theft.

“You had many people waiting until they turned 65 to request full benefits,” he said. “They would go to the Social Security office and found that someone else had been getting partial benefits in their name since they were 62. That was creating major problems.”

Though many Puerto Ricans agreed with the effort to reduce fraud, some questioned whether the government was prepared to field so many requests for new birth certificates. Angelo Falcon, president and co-founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy, challenged officials on this point.

“Many of us are wondering, if over five million people have been born in Puerto Rico, how are they going to handle the requests for these birth certificates?” Mr. Falcon said.

And with so many official documents produced with the help of stolen birth certificates, Mr. Falcon said he wondered whether fraud would be cut back.

“They’re asking for copies of a driver’s license,” Mr. Falcon said. “You could still falsify the information.”

Mr. McClintock said that that was a concern, but that the renewal of birth certificates was expected to significantly reduce fraud.

Mr. Falcon, who was born in Puerto Rico and moved to the mainland as an infant, said he was waiting to apply for a new birth certificate because he would not be traveling this summer.

Mr. McClintock urged others to do likewise. Unless Puerto Ricans are getting married this summer or applying for a first-time driver’s license or passport, he said there was no need to request a new birth certificate right away. Though the government hired 47 summer employees to respond to the birth certificate requests, he hoped to reduce the backlog by asking people to wait.

There are three ways to acquire a new birth certificate – mail-in, walk-in or through PR.gov, Puerto Rico’s government Web site. Through the site, applicants must submit a scan of a government-issued picture identification, like a driver’s license, passport or military identification. Each new certificate costs $5, unless the person is a veteran or 60 or older.

On the streets of Spanish Harlem last Thursday, several older Puerto Ricans said they had planned trips to their home island to order a new birth certificate in person. There, they could apply at one of the island’s 78 municipalities and receive a birth certificate within a day.

Other Puerto Rico-born New Yorkers hadn’t heard about the law, or had heard but didn’t realize the deadline fast approached.

Elizabeth Vega, a housekeeper who lives in the Bronx, said she was vague on the details. A friend tried to order a new birth certificate online for her, but she wasn’t certain if that worked.

“I care because I need a new one, and it’s important to have papers,” Ms. Vega said. “But I don’t know too much.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Government of Puerto Rico has approved an amendment that extends the validity of current Puerto Rico birth certificates for three months, through Sept. 30, 2010, to provide a transition period as the Island gears up to begin issuing new, more secure certificates starting July 1, 2010, announced Nicole Guillemard, executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA).

The purpose of the extension is to provide those Puerto Rico-born — who may need a birth certificate for an upcoming transaction — a three-month window to apply for and receive the new document during which time their current birth certificate will still be valid, Guillemard explained.

“Puerto Rico is issuing new birth certificates starting July 1 to combat fraud and protect the identity and credit of all people born on the Island.  Our goal with the three-month extension is to provide a smooth transition, especially to assist Puerto Ricans born in the Island who currently reside stateside, as they apply for the new, more secure birth certificates,” Guillemard said.

Guillemard said PRFAA has been working with federal, state and community partners to provide information about Puerto Rico’s birth certificate law.

The Government of Puerto Rico has taken a number of steps to be ready for those applying for the new certificates, she said.  Earlier this year, PRFAA launched an information outreach campaign aimed at states with large Puerto Rican populations. In May, the Government launched an on-line application process through the E-Government website – www.pr.gov – to provide convenience and ease-of-use for those applying for the new certificate.

In addition, Puerto Rico’s Demographic Registry recently hired 47 temporary workers to join the agency’s personnel to work on new birth certificate applications, and the agency is extending work week hours, and adding Saturday hours, to speed processing of applications.

Last year, Puerto Rico enacted the new law which calls for issuing new, security-enhanced certificates beginning July 1, 2010 to address the unlawful use of Puerto Rico-issued birth certificates to commit identity theft and fraud.

The law was based on collaborations with the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and addresses a concern specific to Puerto Rico, where in the past, many common official and unofficial transactions unnecessarily required the submission, retention, and storage of birth certificates.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of original birth certificates were stored without adequate protection, making them easy targets for theft.  This left Puerto Rico-born citizens vulnerable to identity theft, ruined credit, stolen Social Security benefits, and increased “random” security checks at airports, among others. In addition to issuing new birth certificates, the new law expressly prohibits any public or private entity in Puerto Rico from retaining an original birth certificate to end this practice.

Guillemard underscored that only those who need a birth certificate for a transaction or official purpose need apply right away.  Those who want to obtain a copy for their records can do so at a later date to avoid an unnecessary rush of applications.

Instructions on how to apply, as well as information on Puerto Rico’s birth certificate law, can be found at: www.prfaa.com/birthcertificates/ and www.prfaa.com/certificadosdenacimiento/.

The new birth certificates will be issued through the Puerto Rico Health Department’s Vital Statistics office. 

###

The snack bar worker is one of thousands of Puerto Ricans caught up in a lucrative document-fraud scheme to hide illegal immigrants in the United States. They’re American citizens with Hispanic surnames. And their records — kept loosely in schools or church rectories, where they are easy to steal — draw as much as $6,000 on the black market.

Only when police showed up at Marrero’s San Juan airport food stand to arrest him for car theft did he realize that identity thieves were upending his life.

“All the information, all of it, the driver’s license, the Social Security, my address, was mine,” he said of the warrant. “I was shocked. I told them simply that it wasn’t me.”

Documents stolen from Puerto Rico have shown up in fraud-ring busts in Delaware and Ohio and immigration raids on meatpacking plants from Texas to Florida. No government or law enforcement official can put a dollar amount on the illegal trade, but documents are so valuable that addicts on the island trade their own documents for drugs.

“Birth certificates have become legal tender,” said Kenneth McClintock, Puerto Rico’s secretary of state.

The island government’s only answer so far is to void every Puerto Rican birth certificate as of July 1 and require about 5 million people — including 1.4 million on the U.S. mainland — to reapply for new ones with security features. New birth certificates will be issued starting July 1, and all old birth certificates will be annulled by Sept. 30.

But no one can guarantee the mass inconvenience will solve the problem. Untold numbers of passports, driver’s licenses and other documents issued to holders of false birth certificates are still valid.

The law only aims to make it harder to get false documents in the future, but does nothing to target those already in circulation. And a person holding a stolen birth certificate could conceivably apply to receive one of the new ones, which will have special seals and be printed on counterfeit-proof paper — though they would have to present other personal data that they might not have, McClintock said.

“We had to take drastic measures,” he said. “The new law does not pretend to solve all the problems. What it aims to do is resolve the massive theft problem.”

The problem stems from the Puerto Rican tradition of requiring birth certificates to enroll in schools or join churches, sports team or other groups, which keep them in unsecured offices or drawers. The new law voiding all birth certificates prohibits such groups from keeping copies.

“I think people noticed that no one was paying attention to those documents,” said a Puerto Rico-based FBI agent on the cases, who requested anonymity because the agent works under cover. “In the future, this could be linked to everything, even terrorism. I don’t doubt that it could go that way.”

But the bulk of the business now is selling to people who are living and working illegally in the U.S.

The most valued package comes with a birth certificate, a Social Security card and a driver’s license — called a “tripleta” after Puerto Rico’s renowned street sandwich stuffed with three types of meat, said Roberto Escobar of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Puerto Rico.

“They can custom order: ‘I need two children and five adults,’” the FBI agent added.

Identity-theft rings have been busted in Puerto Rico and several states, with one accused of stealing the data of 7,000 public school children after breaking into more than 50 island schools over two years. In another case, an employee with the Puerto Rican Department of Motor Vehicles is accused of stealing 1,200 driver’s-license renewal forms.

The new law comes at a time when Latinos are being increasingly scrutinized for their immigration status and deported in large numbers. It’s causing problems for some Puerto Ricans who say their birth certificates already have been rejected when they applied for driver’s licenses. Others have been required to answer questions about Puerto Rico to prove their citizenship, said Cesar Perales, president of LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a civil rights group.

Some don’t know the answers because they have lived on the mainland so long.

“There’s now this cloud over Puerto Rican birth certificates,” Perales said. “The timing, it seems to me, could not have been worse.”

Under another law that takes effect in 2014, Puerto Ricans will have to obtain new driver’s licenses with higher security features. Currently, the island has five different types of driver’s licenses, which are sold for $100 to $150, said Puerto Rican police detective Jose Bejaran Mercado.

Carlos Morales, who lives with his family in Orlando, Fla., is among those who must reapply for a birth certificate.

Two years ago, someone filed a tax return using his Social Security number. Morales, who had been married for nearly 30 years, tried to explain why another woman claiming to be his wife filed the return.

“My wife even thought (I had) somebody else: ‘Who is this woman trying to get five grand?’” he recalled her asking.

Marrero, the airport food worker, avoided arrest for car theft because he didn’t match the police photo of the suspect. He reported a case of identity theft in 2004 after he applied for a loan to buy furniture and got turned down. But nothing happened in the six years since then — except that more people started using his information.

Besides stealing cars, people using his identity defaulted on loans in Miami and fell behind on credit-card payments in Chicago.

The 32-year-old married father of two called police a year after filing his identity-fraud complaint to ask about progress. He said local authorities were dismissive.

“They told me, ‘There are cases more important than that little case,’” he said.

Meanwhile, his credit has been ruined.

“They won’t even lend me money for an ice cream cone,” he said. “There’s a criminal who knows everything about my life, and I know nothing about his.”

As poll after poll shows, Americans are frustrated about billions of tax dollars being handed to politically-connected corporations that have learned to game the system to their advantage.

There is no better example of this than the sweetheart deals that Britain’s Diageo, the world’s largest liquor company, and Fortune Brands, a major conglomerate that also makes rum, convinced the current Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) to sign.  The more U.S. lawmakers and citizens learn about these deals, the more they oppose the schemes. Early last century, the federal government decided to grant the Government of Puerto Rico federal taxes on Puerto Rican products to pay for the costs of government in the territory.  In 1954, Congress expanded the rum “cover over” program to the USVI. The Senate floor manager of the bill noted that “this grant is intended to replace the annual appropriation bill for municipal deficits, central administration, public works and certain other programs.”

Until recently, the grants were spent for those purposes.   Both the Governments of Puerto Rico and the USVI spent most of the money — federal taxes on rum — on services for their citizens, with a small portion going to promote the rums produced in their territory.  Puerto Rico enacted a law limiting assistance to the rum industry to 10 percent of the granted federal taxes but for many years has only used six percent for the industry and the rest, 94 percent, for public services.

Then the two multinational companies misled some officials of the USVI into changing the rules.

Between 2003 and 2007, they agreed to increase the subsidies of Cruzan rum, now made by Fortune Brands, from 7.5 percent of the grants of federal taxes on the rum to 30 percent.  They have further agreed to increase the subsidy to 46.5 percent.  

Diageo also persuaded the current Governor and a majority of local legislators to promise it subsidies equal to as much as 47.5 percent of the federal tax grants on Captain Morgan rum for 30 years if the company would move production of Captain Morgan to the USVI from Puerto Rico.  The subsidies have been estimated to be worth at least $2.7 billion.  Included are the cost of a distillery that would be given to Diageo free of charge and paid for with more than $550 billion in federal tax grants, almost all of the cost of the main ingredient in rum – molasses, 35 percent of what Diageo spends to market the rum, and an additional 8-9.5 percent of the federal tax grants on the rum. This subsidy is so huge that the net cost to Diageo to produce rum is zero.  From Diageo’s point of view, it is the perfect deal. 

The deals will cost Puerto Rico government revenue, economic activity, and jobs.  They also threaten the complete demise of the Puerto Rican rum industry due to unfair, excessively-subsidized competition.  Puerto Rican producers would only be able to compete in the marketplace if they, too, are given massive subsidies – but this would be at the expense of the public services that the federal tax grants were meant to support in the territories.

Anti-tax groups such as Taxpayers for Common Sense, oppose the USVI deals.  Labor unions, including the SEIU, AFSME and UNITE-HERE, are also opposed.

Virgin Islanders should also be opposed — as some in the territorial legislature and others are.  The deals would inadvisedly — and needlessly — give away billions of federal tax grants that should be used for public services in that territory.  Diageo, for example, would certainly have moved Capitain Morgan rum production to the Virgin Islands with a subsidy of a lot less than 47.5 percent of the federal tax grants due to sales of Captain Morgan: Captain Morgan was thriving in Puerto Rico with government assistance of only about three percent of the grants. 

I urge Members of Congress to support bipartisan legislation sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez and four other senators and Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi and 13 other House Members that would limit subsidies to rum companies to 10 percent of federal rum tax grants.  This is a generous amount of assistance as proven by Diageo’s current profitability in Puerto Rico.

Most importantly, the legislation will ensure that federal tax dollars — which are ultimately paid by American rum drinkers – will go to support services such as healthcare, education, and public facilities for the Americans of the territories, and do not excessively subsidize foreign or multi-national companies that are already profitable.

If we want to restore the public’s faith in government spending, we need to ensure that  federal rum tax grants are primarily used for their intended purpose – providing public services for citizens, not massive subsidies for rum companies.

Javiar Vazquez is the executive director of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, a public corporation that administers the Rums of Puerto Rico program.

By Christopher Muther, Globe Staff  |  June 27, 2010

SAN JUAN — It was my third, maybe fourth trip to Puerto Rico, and unlike my other vacations to the island I was not blessed this time with a string of perfect cloudless days. But the silver lining to all the muggy rain was a chance to explore the city. And it was then that I made a sweet discovery.

At breakfast one morning at La Bombonera, I tried my first pan de Mallorca. The not-too-sweet roll, dusted with powdered sugar, is soft, light, buttery, and nearly perfect. I ordered one grilled with butter.

As it turned out, La Bombonera is as well known for its Mallorcas as it is for its retro interior, complete with glass pastry cases, long lunch counter with red vinyl seats, and tile floors trampled by decades of hungry customers.

Expect to wait in line a while before you get to try your first Mallorca. And if you don’t have a trip planned to Puerto Rico soon, I found a recipe at thenosh ery.com/tag/mallorca that does a fantastic job of replicating La Bombonera’s flaky delicacy.

La Bombonera, 259 Calle de San Francisco, 787-722-0658

CHRISTOPHER MUTHER 

http://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2010/06/27/in_san_juan_a_sweet_discovery?mode=PF

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and ordered Federal aid to supplement Commonwealth and local recovery efforts in the area struck by severe storms and flooding during the period of May 26-31, 2010. 

Federal funding is available to Commonwealth and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms and flooding in the municipalities of Arecibo, Barranquitas, Coamo, Corozal, Dorado, Naranjito, Orocovis, Utuado, Vega Alta, and Vega Baja.

Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures for the entire Commonwealth. 

W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Justo Hernández as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area. 

FEMA said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the Commonwealth and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:  FEMA (202) 646-3272.

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 In an exclusive interview for The Americano Newt talks to the Governor of Puerto Rico about the economy, the Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2010, and more.

Part I – watch the video here
Speaker Gingrich: Let’s start with the challenge you faced when you became governor and the economy and what you’ve done since then.

Governor Fortuño: Certainly. When I became governor, we had been experiencing the worst and deepest recession since the 30s. It commenced two full years before it started in the rest of the country. We’re starting to come out of it. Secondly, I faced the largest state budget deficit, proportionally speaking, in the country. It was 45% of our state budget. We didn’t have money to meet our first payroll. We had to rush legislation through our state legislature to be able to pay and meet that payroll. On top of that, the state government owed suppliers of goods and services over $1.3 billion on top of the almost $3.5 billion deficit. We paid up all that money, we brought down from 45% to 30% that budget deficit, and now with the new budget that is being approved as we speak, it will come down to 12% of our budget and we’ll balance our budget in the first term. But on top of that, I’ll do away with a lot of special interest deductions and credits and what have you, and we’ll be lowering income taxes across the board this year, which is going against the current of what’s happening in Washington. On top of that, another major issue that I faced was an out of control permitting process. There were so many permits to do anything and we essentially are doing away with more than half of the permits. Actually at the end of the day we’re going to have one permit and we approved legislation along those lines. One regulation is going through public hearings as we speak and we’ll just get one permit to move forward your projects.

We also approved legislation and we’re starting to put out projects—we’ve already put out 5 projects with a program, the most advanced public-private partnership legislation in the country, and it is really truly cutting edge. And we’ve seen a couple of states try this. Our P3 legislation is the most advanced in the country and provides for a program, not just a couple of projects. And we’re putting out an airport, water projects, energy projects, highway projects, school construction, and maintenance. So we are cutting edge in this sense. We want to create the best business climate in the country in Puerto Rico. Again, we are part of America—same legal system—but we have some advantages that we want to exploit fully.

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