More than 12 million Mexican nationals living abroad are now able to receive their birth certificates without traveling back home, which could benefit President Barack Obama's deferred action programs.

As of Jan. 15, the Mexican government has begun allowing its citizens to receive birth certificates from any Civil Registry Office in Mexico or consulates around the world. In the U.S., 50 Mexican consulates are able to access data in Mexico and print a copy of a citizen's birth certificate for $13.

According to the Mexican Embassy in the U.S., Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary José Antonio Meade Kuribreña partnered with the Ministry of the Interior and the National Register of Population and Personal Identification (RENAPO) to develop methods for Mexican citizens to obtain birth certificates in each Mexican consular.

"For us, it's very clear that the Mexican community in the United States is more or less settled," said Julian Escutia-Rodriguez, head of consular coordination and Hispanic affairs at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. "So our responsibility is that they succeed and that their rights are respected."

The Mexican Embassy made it clear that the ability to obtain the birth certificates could be "great assistance" for Mexicans wanting to benefit from Obama's immigration executive actions. With the birth certificates, Mexicans will be able to seek other official documents such as a Mexican passport or an identification card. With the identification, undocumented Mexican citizens living in the U.S. could apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program or the new Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA), which will allow undocumented immigrants temporary stay in the U.S. instead of deportation.

Prior to the new initiative, Mexicans were required to travel back to Mexico to obtain their birth certificate from governmental offices.

Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto had commented on the birth certificate program during a White House visit with Obama earlier this month. Peña Nieto said Obama's immigration executive action was a "very intelligent and audacious decision." He recognized many affected by the immigration executive actions have originally arrived from different countries, but "a very big majority" are Mexican citizens. Peña Nieto said his government is willing to help Mexican citizens, who have lived in the U.S. before 2010, obtain documentation for eligible programs by Obama's executive actions, noting the birth certificate program without traveling back to Mexico.

"They are going to be able to get this very important document," Peña Nieto said, originally in Spanish. "And, of course, another very important factor that we've discussed is for Mexico to be doing everything it can so that this measure will only be benefiting those people that are supposed to be there, and for it not to generate any misinformation or abuses, especially of the organized crime groups, groups that are doing human trafficking and that they will be encouraging the type of migration which is exactly the type we don't want to have."

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