The Foreign Service Journal, April 2015

16 April 2015 | the foreign Service journal Citizenship and Unwed Border Moms: The Misfortune of Geography By Ame l i a Shaw I love working on the passports line in Tijuana. It’s a job that for the most part makes people happy. I get to say “Señor, your passport is approved,” which generally elicits a smile— some- times even a fist pump. I also get to “make Americans”—a colloquialism for adjudicating citizenship for applicants for a Consular Report of Birth Abroad. All those American moms and dads who bring in little Lupita and Miguelito—their kids are so cute at the window, with their shy “buenos días” or their hair tied in bows. But there is a very difficult aspect of my job that comes up probably once or twice a week. It’s adjudicating the CRBA cases of unwed American-citizen mothers who live along the U.S.-Mexico border. More than once women have left my window in tears, prompting me to ponder the question of equal protection under the law. Transmitting Citizenship 101 Here is a little background for you non-consular folks. For a parent to trans- mit citizenship to a child born overseas, the applying parent needs to prove three things: his or her U.S. citizenship, a bio- Amelia Shaw joined the Foreign Service (public di- plomacy cone) in 2014 after careers in journalism and public health. She is cur- rently doing consular work in Tijuana, her first post. Speaking Out logical relationship to the child, and that he or she has spent sufficient time in the United States to satisfy the physical pres- ence requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act. “Physical presence” was written into the INA as a way to ensure that American- citizen parents had “absorbed American culture and values” enough to pass them on to their progeny (see Foreign Affairs Manual 1133.3). It is also a way to prevent an endless chain of hereditary American descendants—you don’t necessarily get to be an American just because your father or your grandfather was. But what “physical presence” means depends on who is applying. Men and married women need to show five years of accumulated presence, with two years after the age of 14. Unmarried women need one year of continuous presence, meaning unbroken time—no trips outside the U.S. And herein lies the rub: a law that was designed to help unwed moth- ers transmit citizenship has created an unintended gender inequality, at least for women along our land borders. The Bias of History Throughout our nation’s history, marriage has been a key in determin- ing a woman’s nationality. In early 1776, Abigail Adams famously petitioned her husband John Adams to “remember the For families who live in the United States, a CRBA denial can split the home because the Mexican-born child cannot enter the United States. Vera Zdravkova