Despite being born on a U.S. military base in Washington state, U.S. Marine Corps veteran Fred Harper, 54, of Prineville, is having a tough time proving to the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services
that he’s a U.S. citizen.
Pete Erickson
The Bulletin
Prineville Marine vet, born on a military base, denied license after he can’t prove citizenship
By Lauren Dake / The Bulletin
Published: October 04. 2008 4:00AM PSTTwo months ago, Fred Harper, of Prineville, received a white postcard in the mail. It was a reminder that his driver’s license was about to expire, and the renewal requirements have changed.
It seemed simple enough.
So, on Wednesday morning, the 54-year-old grabbed an insurance bill to prove his residence. He found the paper showing he had been honorably discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1974, and he grabbed his birth certificate.
Then he jumped in his pickup — the one with the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services-issued license plates that say U.S. Marine Corps Oregon Veteran — and drove to the local Prineville DMV office, where he knew personally the woman working behind the counter.
And that’s where the Washington-state born and Prineville resident of 44 years was told he couldn’t sufficiently prove he was a U.S. citizen.
“At first, I was kind of in shock,” Harper said about the experience.
Earlier this summer, tougher state identification requirements went into effect, but they were so strict, any name discrepancy — say between a birth certificate and Social Security card — disqualified someone. The complaints, especially from married women whose names on their birth certificates often didn’t match their driver’s licenses, racked up.
So on Sept. 15, the regulations were loosened.
“The rules were modified and part of the reason for that is we found that the rules set up caused a lot of headaches for those who had been through a divorce or name change, or whose documents were old,” said Kevin Beckstrom, a spokesman for the DMV. “Now, we accept more documents to prove legal presence, and they aren’t quite as stringent on proof of full legal name.”
But now, only few weeks after the change, it appears not all the kinks have been worked out.
“We hoped to resolve about 91 percent of the name-related issues,” Beckstrom said. “So there will still be a few like apparently this gentleman who has problems with documentation; that’s why we set up the ombudsman because we knew there were going to be problems.”
Harper’s problem?
His birth certificate was issued by a hospital, not the state. So, despite proof that he was in the U.S. Marine Corps, and that he has a concealed weapon permit, which requires a background check by the FBI, his U.S. Army hospital birth certificate isn’t enough.
The problem is the Washington state Army base on which he was born — his father was active duty in Korea at the time — no longer exists, and he’s having difficulty tracking down a state birth certificate.
Harper hasn’t spoken to an ombudsman — nobody told him one existed. But he did say officials from the DMV said they would call him back.
There are other ways to prove his citizenship: He could get a passport and then use that to get a driver’s license. But it’s $100 and it wouldn’t arrive before his license expires.
“To tell you the truth, things are tight,” Harper said about money. He said he currently lives on Social Security disability insurance.
“I agree we have to be tough on who gets a driver’s license,” he said. “But there has to be some common sense when a government agency is so scared of making a mistake, or so tunneled vision, that’s when they start making mistakes — when they throw out common sense.”
Beckstrom said he knows there is still a gray area when it comes to the law.
“It’s not intended to create problems for people who are trying to abide by the law,” he said.
But for Harper, who has limited resources, it has created problems. He’s worried about driving with an expired license, he’s driven all over town trying to fix it — to the Crook County Court, the Sheriff’s Office — and he’s made calls to the DMV headquarters and tried to track down a state-issued birth certificate in Washington.
“It’s just preposterous,” he said. “They don’t give these people (in the DMV office) any latitude to make common judgment calls.”
“If in 90 days I don’t hear anything, I guess I’ll start walking,” he said. “And I’m too old for that.”
Lauren Dake can be reached at 541-419-8074 or at ldake@bendbulletin.com.
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