http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13928948.htm
Posted on Wed, Feb. 22, 2006

Citizenship claims are questioned

U.S. residents who claim to derive citizenship from naturalized parents are detained because they lack papers to prove their status.
BY ALFONSO CHARDYachardy@MiamiHerald.com

A loud knock awakened Frantzy Odige before sunrise in January.
When Odige, 23, opened the door to his North Miami home, immigration officers took him into custody and accused him of being a foreign national who needed to be deported because he had been convicted as a sex offender. Odige protested, saying he is an American.

The officers told Odige to save his protests for the judge. They locked him up at a facility in Bradenton and put him in deportation proceedings. Odige is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge today.

Cases similar to Odige's are springing up throughout the country. They involve people who claim to derive U.S. citizenship from naturalized parents when they were under 18 -- but find their claim questioned by authorities after they have been convicted of a crime and have no papers to prove their status.

Odige was born in Haiti in 1982, and his parents were naturalized in 1986. Odige's attorney, Andre Pierre, said his client met legal requirements for automatic derivative citizenship.

WHAT THE LAW SAYS
The law requires that a child be under 18, be in the custody of parents who are naturalized U.S. citizens and reside in the United States with a green card.

Officials sought to deport Odige because he had been convicted of a sexual offense involving a minor, Pierre said. He said his client had been dating a 12- or 13-year-old girl when Odige was 18. Odige was put on probation and years later was picked up by immigration officers as a deportable ``criminal alien.'

The issue may be whether Odige qualifies for derived citizenship because he has been a permanent resident as of 1999 -- not at the time his parents were naturalized. Some read immigration law then in effect as requiring that the child reside in the United States at the time of his parents' naturalization -- but language in the section does not specifically say that. Odige joined his parents in Miami when he was 16.

Immigration attorneys say the number of people who claim derivative U.S. citizenship who have been detained by immigration officers appears to have increased as a result of more systematic enforcement of immigration laws after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. There are no available statistics.

Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman in Miami, noted that ICE agents act on ''specific intelligence'' when detaining people they believe to be deportable.
''If there is reason to believe that someone is in the country illegally or is removable, then we'll take appropriate action as necessary on a case-by-case basis,'' Gonzalez said.

Many who claim derived U.S. citizenship have no way to immediately prove citizenship if they have no papers. In some cases, they have never obtained a passport or certificate of citizenship.

'REAL ISSUE' AT HAND
''The real issue here is: To what extent should Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigate the claim of derivative citizenship before they subject someone to prolonged detention?'' said Ira Kurzban, a Miami immigration attorney. ``Before they arrest someone, they should check their records.'

Federal law permits immigration officers to demand papers from foreign nationals to prove they are legally in the country -- but says nothing about what authority they have to demand papers from someone who claims citizenship and doesn't have papers to prove it.

Anis Saleh, a Miami immigration attorney, said that in his experience the problem is common and has nothing to do with stricter enforcement.
He said the problem affects citizens who have derived citizenship and who have never obtained a U.S. passport or a certificate of citizenship.

Saleh said he has had at least six cases in the last 13 years of foreign-born U.S. citizens with derived citizenship who have been detained. In all cases, he said, they have been released once he demonstrated to officials that a mistake had been made.