New Mexico resident ID temporarily rejected as "foreign" By D.C. Registrar: NPR



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Gavin Clarkson of Las Cruces, N.M., speaking at the Associated Press office in Albuquerque earlier this year. On November 20, a court clerk from Washington, DC, did not recognize New Mexico as a state and stated that the Clarkson driver's license was not a part of the law. Valid identity to obtain a marriage license.

Russell Contreras / AP


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Russell Contreras / AP

Gavin Clarkson of Las Cruces, N.M., speaks at the Albuquerque Office of the Associated Press earlier this year. On November 20, a court clerk in Washington, DC, failed to recognize New Mexico as a state and stated that the Clarkson driver's license was not a part of the law. valid identity allowing to obtain a marriage license.

Russell Contreras / AP

A man in New Mexico applying for a marriage license in Washington this month, has his state license rejected as an ID because an employee and his supervisor felt that New Mexico was A strange country.

Gavin Clarkson, a resident of Las Cruces, New Mexico, said that he was at the Columbia District Marriage Office on Nov. 20 to apply for a license to marry his fiancée as their bridal projects collided. to a brief hitch. The clerk told him that he would need an international passport as he apparently thought that he was not an American citizen.

"She thought New Mexico was a foreign country," he said of the clerk quoted by the Las Cruces newspaper Sun News. "All the couples behind us lined up laughing."

Clarkson was a recent candidate for the position of Secretary of State of New Mexico and a member of the Choctaw Nation. He stated that he had protested against the secretary's decision to his supervisor, who had also failed to recognize New Mexico as a state.

"You know that you come from a country overflown when you apply for a marriage license, give them your New Mexico driver's license, and they come back and say," My supervisor says we can not not accept international driving licenses. Do you have a New Mexico passport? "" Clarkson tweeted .

This is only when Clarkson went back to see the clerk, insisting that his driver's license was a piece of legal identity, which the clerk finally agreed to accept and to deliver it to him. a marriage license.

A spokeswoman for the District of Columbia Courts acknowledged this error.

"We understand that an employee of our marriage office made a mistake regarding the 106-year history of New Mexico," said Leah H. Gurowitz, director of relations with the media and the public for DC Courts, in an email to Sun-News . "We regret very much the error and the slight delay caused by the application for a marriage license by a New Mexico resident."

Clarkson and his wife, Marina, a naturalized citizen of Argentina, said the meeting lasted about 20 minutes and finally, they got married with a good story to tell about the process.

Clarkson's citizenship was not the only issue challenged by the clerk. Marina Clarkson is fluent in English but with a slight accent. However, the clerk congratulated Gavin, not Marina, for his command of the language. Marina wondered then, "Why do you compliment him for his English?"

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