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Maya’s story: Proving citizenship

Posted on Apr 30 2018

Sometimes being documented is not enough. With year of hard work and filing piles of papers, ILCM  helped a family recover proof of their right to stay in the United States.

During a visit to family in Mexico in 2015, Maya’s* husband abandoned her and her three daughters. When she packed up and headed for home, the real trouble began.

Maya’s husband is a U.S. citizen. Their five-year-old twin daughters, Sara and Susana, were born in Mexico, but are U.S. citizens because their father is a citizen. Maya and her seven-year-old daughter, Isa, are both Mexican citizens. Her husband had taken all their documents with him, except for Maya’s green card. Despite Maya’s numerous attempts to reach him, he would not respond to her calls or the messages she left with his family.

* We have changed some names in this story. As a matter of policy, we usually change the names of immigrants when telling their stories. While the stories are real, and while the individuals have agreed to let us use their stories, we choose to protect their privacy by not using their real names.

Maya and the children got as far as the Laredo, Texas border crossing. Maya and Isa were questioned there for hours. Although Maya and Isa were both legal permanent residents of the United States, only Maya had proof of her status. Isa had no documents with her and they had no proof that Sara and Susana were U.S. citizens.

Eventually, the officers at the border found information in their records to say that Isa was a legal resident. They gave Maya a statement saying that Isa’s document was lost and needed to be replaced.  They told her that they had found information for the twins, but could not release it to her. They did let the family back into the United States, telling Maya to replace the children’s documents.

Maya and the children settled down in Thief River Falls. She thought about replacing their documents, but did not even know where to begin. That’s when someone at H&R Block told her about the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. Maya came to see ILCM’s Martha Castañon in November, 2016, when Martha made one of her regular circuit-riding visits to Crookston.

“We filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) forms on all three in March, 2017 to see what would come up for each,” Martha recalls. “ILCM attorney Sheila Stuhlman also did an INFO Pass appointment and was able to get Isa’s A number.”

They waited for answers to the FOIA requests. ILCM also filed N-565 Application for Certificate of Citizenship for the twins in April, 2017.  Finally, in May of 2017 word came back: the FOIA search turned up no record of Sara or Susana, and the application was denied because there were no records in June, 2017.

Isa got better news: records showed that she was a permanent resident, so Martha filed an application to replace her permanent resident card.

And they waited.

“I reviewed with Maya again the facts of when she and Isa got their visas,” Martha said. “She recalled that when she and Isa had their interviews at the consulate in Mexico, back in October, 2012, her husband had inquired about the twin girls.  He was told that they had derivative citizenship but he would need to go to the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara, Mexico to get their documents.”

When they went to Guadalajara, he and the twins were interviewed by a consular officer, and when he came out of the office he had what Maya called “blue papers.”  Those were the papers he took when he abandoned the family.

Martha did not give up. She gleaned information on the father from Isa’s FOIA response, and ordered a copy of his naturalization certificate. Next, she put together affidavits explaining the circumstances, birth certificates, a marriage certificate, the father’s naturalization certificate, Maya’s I-551 card, photos and an application for replacement of the Certificate of Birth Born Abroad. All that, with a $50 fee for each girl, went in to the Department of State on November 30, 2017.

December came and went with no word.

In January, Isa’s I-551 card—her green card—arrived! Now she was safe, with the green card showing she was a legal permanent resident.

Still no word on the twins, not even a confirmation that the application had been received.

Finally, on February 12, 2018, Martha received the Certificates of Birth Born Abroad for Sara and Susana.

“I called Maya and she cried, she was so relieved,” Martha recalls. “All three girls now have social security numbers and were able to get school IDs. Isa’s FOIA record showed her father’s social security number, so Maya will be able to get assistance for her girls and go after him for child support. Maya cried tears of joy and she hugged me so much, thanking me over and over for our assistance.”