Proof of Residency?

WARNING: The requirement to prove you are a resident of the State of Texas has been upgraded from irritating to ludicrous.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166018,00.html

I, too, have had personal experiences with the type of bureaucratic mishandling of the proof of residency requirement faced by Carl Basham in the article at the link posted above.

One is when I recently received a postcard from the Texas Department of Public Safety stating that I needed to bring proof of my social security account number to them to renew my driver's license. There is no explanation as to why--after retiring from the US Army in 1993, moving from Europe to Dallas and declaring Texas as my home of residency, obtaining a Texas driver's license with my DD-214 ( Certificate of Discharge with my SSAN because the armed forces use your SSAN as your service identification number) and DD-2A (retired servicemember's ID card which has my SSAN on the front)--they now won't allow me to renew my driver's license without providing them again with proof of my SSAN. I would like to know what they did with the copies of those records I left with them the last time.

Another is a similar experience to Mr. Basham's when my youngest son tried to register for a summer class with the Dallas County Community College District. The residency requirements are posted at:

http://www.dcccd.edu/Future+Students/Admissions+and+Registration/Admission/Residency.htm

At the time, my 20 year old son--who had attended Texas school's since 3rd grade and graduated from a local high school with honors--had just completed his sophomore year of college at the University of Texas at Dallas. But when he went to register, the combination of his high school transcript, current college transcript, latest 1040A income tax return, and Texas driver's license--all of which showed his residency for at least the past six years at our home address in Dallas--were not enough evidence to allow him to be considered for the in-state residency tuition rate. It was not until we provided them a copy of our 1040 and driver's licenses did they allow the in-state tuition rate. Why wouldn't they accept the other documentation when taken together?

1. He had been out of high school for more than a year so his transcript was invalid because they said he could have been living anywhere for the past couple of years.
2. His college transcript was not an "official" transcript, but the one only he could print from the UTD system by accessing his account with them using his personal identification number and did not offer proof that he had been attending school in Texas.
3. His tax return was only for a summer job and not for a job he had worked for a year or more, so it did not prove his residency.
4. His driver's license, which contained our home address and was more than a year old, was considered by the registrar to be invalid because it did not expire in less than 3 years. I still haven't been able to firgure this one out.
5. He could not provide any rental agreements or utility or telephone bills as proof of residence because he lives at home while attending an excellent college just 2 miles from our home and his phone is on our family plan.

One of the really strange parts of our conversation with the registrar was that they would have accepted a letter of employment on letterhead stationary from a company with a Texas address stating he had worked there for a year as proof of residency. I asked if they called to verify such letters and was told they did not. When I mentioned how easy it was for any semi-technically literate teenager today to create such a letter and offer it falsely as "proof" of empolyment, the answer I received from the registrar was a shrug and a blank stare.

My son's and Mr. Basham's aren't the only cases of such bureaucratic tomfoolery. One of my teacher's had a similar experience with her son and the Dallas County Community College District. I only wish the registrars who so diligently guard the doors of our local community and junior colleges were in charge of our borders. After my experience with them, if they were, the illegal immigration problem would undoubtedly not be much of a problem at all because nobody would ever have the requisite identification they would need to be allowed to enter the country--unless, of course, it was a letter of employment on forged letterhead stationary that nobody would bother to verify.