Meet Alicia, a Living, Breathing 19-Year-Old Girl Who Doesn’t Exist

Hello there! I hope it's warmer where you are than it is here. -24C when we got up at 4:30 am today. Yeah, I know... but Nong has been starting work at 6:00 am all week so I drive here in. Made a nice bowl of Khao Tom (Thai rice soup) when I got back. Still got some left over. Want me to upload some for you? Rice soup? That doesn't sound like coffee! Anyway... coffee is always on in my virtual cafe so help yourself. Grab a virtual doughnut or two while you're over there while I tell you about Alecia.

Saying 19-year-old Alecia Pennington is suffering an identity crisis would be an understatement. Having grown up in a homeschooling Christian household, she never got a birth certificate or social security number, so from an identification point of view, she doesn’t exist.

Alecia is one of the nine Pennington siblings – children of James and Lisa Pennington, group leaders of the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) and members of the Hill Country Home School Association. In a YouTube video Alecia posted on February 9, she claims that following her home-birth, her parents failed to file a birth certificate or record of any kind. She also alleges that they never got her a Social Security Number, have no school records or hospital records simply because she was never taken to a school or a hospital.

“This leaves me with nothing to prove my citizenship,” she explained in the video. “I am now 19 years old and unable to get a driver’s license, get a job, go to college, get on a plane, get a bank account, vote.”

Invisible for all to see. Amazing, eh.. In this day and age, 19 years without a single government record that she exists. Knowing the way bureaucracy operates,  it will take her a long time to sort things out... unless she chances upon people in federal, state and municipal government who care and understand. But, do those kinds of people exist in the bureaucratic arenas with which we must joust on a daily basis? All I can say is "Good luck, Alecia. Don't forget to pack a lunch!"

See ya, eh!

Bob