Virginia Man Stuck in Immigration Center for 2 Years – But He’s Saying He’s a U.S. Citizen
Mario René López has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for two years. Yet, the Virginia man and his attorney argue that he is a United States citizen making his detention unlawful. The case hinges on two things: a specific immigration law in the U.S. and a change in a law in El Salvador in the 1980s. The complicated case has left López’s family pleading for his release from the detention center.
ICE arrested a Virginia man two years ago; he is still in detention
Mario René López is fighting for his release. He has been held at the Caroline Immigrant Detention Facility for two years. He claims he is a U.S. citizen and should not have been detained by immigration officials. Yet, for two years, attorneys have been working to push through his deportation. ICE arrested him in January 2023.
According to NBC News, López has been a resident since he was 16. Family and friends are questioning his detention, angry that he has been held for so long. He is raising his voice to bring attention to his case.
“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,” López told NBC News. “When my mom became a citizen, I was a minor, so I automatically got derivative citizenship from my mother, but for no reason I am now being detained.”
Attorneys claim that López got citizenship through his mother when she naturalized
López and his legal team argue he was granted derivative citizenship in 1998 after his mother naturalized. He was 16 years old at the time. Derivative citizenship is conferred to minors when their parents, or a parent, are naturalized, according to 8 USC 1432.
To further his case, the Virginia man was arrested on drug charges from 2004 and 2005 for which he spent seven years in prison. While incarcerated, the Department of Homeland Security visited him. Immigration officials determined in 2009 that López was a citizen.
However, according to López’s attorney, authorities changed their mind in 2016 and listed him as a resident. The drug charges were enough to put him in deportation proceedings.
The citizenship was conferred to López before the Child Citizenship Act of 2000. According to the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, people who are 18 years old or older on February 27, 2001 are not eligible. Yet, López was granted citizenship before that date.
Prosecutors against López claim his citizenship is not valid due to the Salvadoran constitution
López was born in El Salvador and moved to the U.S. with his mother. His father, attorneys argue, is not present in his life and that his mother’s citizenship did confer onto him. Prosecutors point to a change in the Salvadoran constitution to do away with the differentiation between children born in and out of wedlock.
“I was never married to the father of my children. Mario has no contact with him and never has. I have two children, and the father was never responsible for them, nor did he acknowledge them,” Lopez’s mother told NBC News.
If he is born out of wedlock, which he and his mother claim, then his citizenship claim would be easier to argue. But, due to the change in El Salvador’s constitutions, prosecutors claim that he is no longer born out of wedlock. They say that means he was legitimized and was ineligible for derivative citizenship.
So, prosecutors are claiming that López, who has had no contact with his father, must prove that his father was naturalized. Otherwise, they maintain that López’s citizenship is not legitimate.
