The Foreign Service Journal, April 2015

the Foreign Service journal | April 2015 17 ladies” during the drafting of the Declara- tion of Independence and grant women at least some political rights separate from their husbands. To this she got a dismissive reply: “I cannot but laugh…we know better than to repeal our masculine systems.” The founding fathers just couldn’t imag- ine the political status of women as “citizens”—they could not vote, own property, keep their wages or even have custody of their children. Throughout the 19th century, a wom- an’s citizenship status was murky territory, usually tied to that of her husband. As of 1907, American women routinely lost their U.S. citizenship when they married a foreign national. It was not until 1934 that Congress allowed married women to retain their citizenship, and granted single mothers the right to transmit U.S. citizen- ship under the rationale that she “stands in place of the father.” But what to do about those children born abroad to unmarried U.S.-citizen mothers who did not fulfill the physical presence requirement? Those children were exposed to a significant risk of statelessness, since not all countries grant citizenship as a birth right under the principle of jus soli (literally, “right of the soil”). So in 1952 Congress established the one-year continuous presence require- ment for out-of-wedlock births in an effort to help single mothers—and for the vast majority of women in the world, it does. It is generally easier to prove one year of presence in the U.S. than five. Not so for our citizen-moms along the border. Borderlands— A Story of Flux The U.S.-Mexico border is less a line than a wide swath of territory where movement is fluid. American citizens live on both sides and cross frequently, for a variety of reasons. Salaries north of the border are higher, but apartments in Tijuana are cheaper. The United States has bigger Costcos—not to mention Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. But Mexico has cheap dentists. Some people cross the border just to get a better price on gas. And then there is the question of family. Extended families are frequently dispersed along both sides of the border, so visiting aunts and cousins is, for many area residents, a quotidian affair. Many American women of Mexican heritage choose to have their babies south of the border not only because it costs a lot less, but also because it’s closer to grandma. So when an unmarried American-cit- izen mom comes up to the window for a CRBA, I brace for the worst. Because if she can’t convince me that she did not set foot outside of the United States for 12 straight months, the likelihood is that I am going to deny her. This is what the law requires. Proof of such presence, or in consular speak “a preponderance of evidence,” might be that mom moved to Seattle for all of middle school, or that she grew up in Los Angeles and her extended Mexi- can family was living in the southern state of Chiapas. In these cases, one can argue mom is less likely to have broken the one-year requirement because visit- ing family requires more than a 15-min- ute drive across the border. But for most applicants along the U.S.-Mexico border this is unrealistic. They live on both sides of the line, cross- ing back and forth frequently, without giving a second thought to how it might affect their progeny. These are the women who are in for a nasty shock at my window.