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How Did Medina Get A Bze Passport By Descent?
Fri, December 13, 2013
Tonight, there is the report of a Salvadoran man who got a legitimate nationality under bogus circumstances in a day for just a few hundred dollars. Yesterday, KREM Radio News broke the story of 24-year-old Rafael Alexander Vasquez Medina. He says that in September, his mother was approached at her stall at the Michael Finnegan Market by a woman who said she could get her son's nationality document all worked out for just five hundred dollars.

She took only a week to get it done, and application and certificate were processed in just one day at the Immigration Office in Belmopan. The nationality certificate shows that it was signed by no less than the Director of Immigration Maria Marin herself on behalf of the minister. That day was also September 19th., the day news of the Citizen Kim scandal broke.

Now, it's all very irregular because Citizen Medina got his nationality by descent, but neither of his parents is Belizean. The nationality certificate shows that his mother is Roberta Medina, a woman who he said he doesn't know.

And while he says he got someone to work the system for him - the Minister of Immigration says he did it himself. Godwin Hulse told us this evening that Medina himself presented the Belizean birth certificate from the person he claimed to be his mother, and his own Salvadoran birth certificate. Hulse says the birth certificate from Salvador appears to be certified copy of a, but it is false.

And while he claims he never went in to the immigration department - Hulse says he did and that the signature on the forms and the passports look the same. There are reports that no one signed for the nationality certificate and that the space in the log which should have the signature of receipt is blank - which would be very irregular. Hulse told us he doesn't know about that.

But that aside, how did he get caught? Well it's when Medina went to try and get a social security card. Apparently, he showed up at that office with a birth certificate bearing another name, and that's when the flags went up.

Last week Thursday, he was charged for uttering upon a forged document and being in possession of a forged document. He was offered and met bail of 5 thousand dollars and a surety of the same amount. His case was adjourned until March 3rd, 2014.

Hulse confirms that Medina's nationality will be rescinded. Medina's family maintained that he did nothing wrong.

As for the role of the Director of Immigration, Maria Marin he says the file has the requisite documentation and the director was both authorized and right to sign on it - since the documents appear legitimate.

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