July 1, 2008, 8:16PM
Baby born an American as mom waits to re-enter U.S.


By DANE SCHILLER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

It's been said football is a game of inches, but so is life, at least when it comes to birth on the U.S.-Mexico border.

A baby boy born early Tuesday when his mother, a legal U.S. resident, was in line at El Paso's Bridge of the Americas is as much a U.S. citizen as if he'd been born anywhere else in the United States.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers delivered the child as his mother — a 23-year-old Mexican who has a green card to live in the United States — went into labor.

The woman walked across the bridge, which spans the Rio Grande, at 3 a.m.

She was sent to a lobby for questioning before being allowed to enter the country, although the office is on U.S. soil, customs spokesman Rick Lopez said.

The woman told officers she was going into labor, so they grabbed blankets from a nearby holding cell, Lopez said.

"They comforted her and the baby's head started crowing," Lopez said. "It came quick."

By the time paramedics arrived, the boy had been delivered.

Margaret Althoff-Olivas, a spokeswoman for Thomason Hospital, said the woman wanted to rest and declined an interview.

"Both mother and child are doing fine," she said.

dane.schiller@chron.com


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 66788.html