A federal appeals court has stopped the deportation of a man who has lived in the United States since he was eleven years old, ruling that he technically became an American citizen decades ago. The decision in Mario Lopez vs. Pamela Bondi, handed down Friday by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, hinges on a dense, now-repealed immigration law and the specific legal definitions of “paternity” and “legitimation.”
The case involves Mario Rene Lopez, who was born in El Salvador in 1981 to unmarried parents. Lopez moved to the U.S. to join his mother when he was a child and became a lawful permanent resident. At age 16, his mother became a naturalized U.S. citizen. While the government argued that Lopez remained a citizen of El Salvador, the court found that his mother’s naturalization automatically granted him citizenship under the rules in place in 1998.
The Fight Over a Signature
The legal battle focused on a specific clause of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act. Under that law, a child born out of wedlock became a citizen if their mother naturalized, provided that the child’s paternity had not been “established by legitimation.”
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Federal prosecutors argued that because Lopez’s biological father had signed his birth certificate in El Salvador, his paternity was established. They further claimed that a 1983 change to the Salvadoran constitution, which gave children born out of wedlock equal rights, effectively “legitimated” him.
However, the three-judge panel disagreed. Writing for the court, Judge Toby Heytens noted that simply signing a birth certificate is not the same thing as “legitimation” as the term was understood when Congress wrote the law. The court emphasized that federal law—not the laws of El Salvador—must dictate who qualifies for U.S. citizenship.
Jurisdictional Hurdles
Before reaching the merits of the citizenship claim, the court had to navigate a complex procedural maze. Lopez had been involved in years of litigation, including drug-related criminal convictions that originally triggered the removal proceedings. He is currently being held in immigration detention.
The government tried to have the case dismissed on technical grounds, arguing that earlier orders in the case weren’t “final” enough for the court to review. The Fourth Circuit rejected this, citing recent Supreme Court rulings that have cleared the way for judges to hear such appeals even when some secondary matters, like requests for protection under the Convention Against Torture, are still being sorted out.
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A Meaningful Win for Derivative Citizenship
The ruling is a significant victory for Lopez and others in similar situations. By vacating the previous orders from the Board of Immigration Appeals, the court has effectively ended the government’s attempt to deport him.
“Until the claim of citizenship is resolved, the propriety of the entire proceeding is in doubt,” the court noted, quoting a decades-old precedent. Because the court found no factual dispute that Lopez met the age and residency requirements at the time of his mother’s naturalization, it ordered the immigration proceedings to be terminated immediately.
The court’s decision also created a potential “circuit split,” as it openly disagreed with how some other regions of the country have handled similar Salvadoran cases. This could eventually lead the Supreme Court to weigh in on how old immigration laws interact with the evolving family laws of foreign nations.
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