BOWLING GREEN, VA – Mario Rene López, a 44-year-old man who has lived in the U.S. since he was 12, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for more than two years despite claiming U.S. citizenship through his mother, who was naturalized in 1998, according to NBC News.
López, currently held at the Caroline Detention Facility, said he automatically obtained citizenship as a minor under laws in place at the time, according to NBC News.
“I came to the United States when I was 12 years old, with a permanent residence because my mother was a (legal) resident and she put in the papers and went to pick me up in El Salvador,” stated López, reports NBC News.
López told NBC, “When my mom became a citizen, I was a minor, so I automatically got citizenship derived from my mother, but for no reason, I am now being detained.”
NBC News reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials detained López in January 2023, and he has since been held at the Caroline Detention Facility in Bowling Green.
His mother, Floribel López, 62, confirmed in an interview with Noticias Telemundo, “I gave him the papers when I became a citizen. He is also a citizen because I did it when he was a minor,” wrote NBC News.
Benjamin Osorio, López’s attorney, stated his client qualifies for citizenship under 8 U.S. Code §1432, where children of naturalized U.S. citizens were entitled to derivative citizenship if both parents were naturalized, the parent who had legal custody of the child was naturalized, or if the mother was naturalized with a child out of wedlock, which was the applicable law when López’s mother naturalized in 1998, when López was 16, according to NBC News.
López’s mother, Floribel, told Noticias Telemundo, “We left El Salvador because of the guerrilla problem, because they were killing a lot of people. That’s why we came here,” reported NBC News, which cited the U.N.-backed Truth Commission that reported the Salvadoran civil war, which lasted from 1979 to 1992, left more than 75,000 people dead and thousands more missing.
According to NBC News, the current legal framework governing derivative citizenship is the Child Citizenship Act (2000), which general requirements for eligibility are that a person is the child of at least one U.S. citizen parent, either natural-born or naturalized, including adoptive parents.
“We have the proof that he’s a citizen because we have his birth certificate, the residency, his mother’s citizenship certificate, which she did before he turned 18, and his parents were never married. All of that works to prove that he’s an American,” Osorio told Noticias Telemundo, wrote NBC News.
Mario René López was later convicted of drug offenses at age 20 and served a seven-year prison sentence for convictions in 2004 and 2005 and, while incarcerated, he was visited by Department of Homeland Security officials, who determined in 2009 that he had obtained U.S. citizenship through his mother under the law in effect at the time, according to legal documents in the case, reported NBC News.
However, NBC News explains that in 2016, the Department of Homeland Security reversed its earlier 2009 decision that López was a citizen and deemed him a legal resident rather than a citizen, therefore initiating removal proceedings because of his drug conviction.
Prosecutors argued against 8 USC 1432, that under a 1983 change to El Salvador’s constitution, distinctions between children born in or out of wedlock were removed, thus “legitimizing” López and making him ineligible for derivative citizenship unless both parents were naturalized, according to NBC News and legal documents.
Charles Wheeler, a senior attorney with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, said, “This case is a bit complicated because the government is asking to study the law in El Salvador to determine whether or not he was, in fact, legitimized,” noted NBC News.
“If your parents are U.S. citizens at the time of your birth abroad, or if at least one of them becomes a citizen afterwards, you have access to derivative citizenship. It’s a right, and that law hasn’t changed in about 25 years, and it was passed by Congress,” Wheeler said, reported NBC News.
Wheeler added that it is ironic, because “if it is determined that he was legitimized by the change in the law in that country, then he would have to prove that his father was also naturalized, but apparently his father never had a relationship with him,” reports NBC News.
NBC News cited an interview from the earlier version of the story from Noticias Telemundo, López reflected on the personal toll of his detention: “I made mistakes when I was young, but that helped me change. I’m not that person anymore. I went out to work, I have my registered electrician’s license, and now this happened to me.
“This has caused me too much stress and worries for my family. This is getting too crowded, there are already people who have to sleep on the floor, and I think that’s unfair.”
Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst with the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told Noticias Telemundo, “Because of both legal and procedural barriers, it can be extremely difficult for people to obtain derivative citizenship, even with the help of an attorney.”
The policy-analyst told NBC, “In fact, in some cases, that can result in people being stateless, meaning they don’t have a citizenship.”
While in detention, López’s attorney, Osorio, filed motions to grant him protection under the Convention Against Torture, a measure that prevents deportation to a country where a person faces a real risk of torture, stated NBC News.
The court ruled in his favor, but NBC News reports that ICE is now considering deporting him to another country, potentially Honduras or Mexico, instead of El Salvador.
As reported by NBC News, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in the 2009 case Flores-Torres v. Holder ruled that Herbert Flores-Torres, who was born in El Salvador and detained by ICE, successfully proved his claim to derivative U.S. citizenship because Flores-Torres’ father had never married his mother, which was sufficient to meet the legal standard for derivative citizenship.
Derivative citizenship has become an important pathway to citizenship for thousands of children of immigrants who naturalize annually, helping ensure family unity in the U.S. immigration system, notes NBC News.
An analysis from Noticias Telemundo on official USCIS figures for fiscal years 2021 to 2024 shows the processing of N-600 forms, which people use to apply for derivative citizenship through their parents. In the period, according to Noticias Telemundo’s article, the agency received 255,126 applications, and 230,193 were approved, at an approval rate of 91.3 percent.
“It has been very traumatic because, from one day to the next, I was left alone with my children. It’s a nightmare, and economically it’s not easy, either,” said Angelica Reyes, López’s wife, who remembers the day of her husband’s detention, reports NBC News.
Reyes recalls waking up one morning and noticing her husband’s truck was still parked and that he hadn’t left for work, according to NBC News. She said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo, “I got worried and started calling some friends and the guys who worked with him, but no one knew anything. After two or three hours, I was able to get a call from him telling me that he had been detained by ICE.”
NBC News reports the Caroline Detention Facility, where López is being held, was the subject of a 2023 inspection by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, which uncovered systemic failures in health services, food handling and the processing of detainee complaints.
After the inspection, ICE acknowledged only two of the eight recommendations issued by the Office of Inspector General, specifically regarding food handling and grievance procedures, according to reports from Noticias Telemundo, added NBC News.
A recent report with DHS figures indicates that immigration detention centers are at capacity, with over 47,600 people detained nationwide, cites NBC News from Noticias Telemundo.
“This has been a trauma for my six children, my wife, my mother, and my entire family. I was doing things right,” López said in the interview with Noticias Telemundo, adding, “Even the judge said I am a reformed person, I am not a danger to society. This is a nightmare,” cites NBC News.
