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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: INS problems
Message-ID: <1114@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Mar-86 10:13:05 EST
Article-I.D.: bunker.1114
Posted: Tue Mar 25 10:13:05 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Mar-86 00:43:56 EST
References: <254@ucdavis.UUCP>
Reply-To: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Distribution: net
Organization: Bunker Ramo, Trumbull Ct
Lines: 54
Summary: 

In article <254@ucdavis.UUCP> ccrse@ucdavis.UUCP (Steve Ehrhardt) writes:
>My wife has been having some rather frustrating problems with the INS of
>late, and I'm hoping that perhaps some of you on the net may be able to
>provide some advice on how to deal with it.
>
>My wife was born in Canada, with her mother being Canadian but her father
>American.  The rub is that he was living under an assumed name and claiming
>to be a Canadian citizen at the time, so that all the legal documents, such
>as her birth certificate, indicate that she is Canadian *only*.

Based on my own frustrations with the INS, I suggest you ignore them and
apply for a passport instead, unless there is some reason why you need
one particular form of proof of citizenship.  If you can't get a passport,
talk to your congressman; there is such a thing as a "private bill" --
a bill which affects only one person.  If he can't get anything
else done for you, he could propose a bill which simply states that
so-and-so is hereby recognized as a US citizen.

Why you should be able to get a passport when you can't get a certificate
of citizenship is beyond me.  Perhaps it's because the INS is part of the
Justice department, and passports are issued by the State department, and
the two departments are mad at each other.  For whatever reason, it
worked for me.

My situation:  I was born in Germany to US citizens.  My father has a
completely unremarkable birth certificate from the state of Nebraska;
no problems there.  But my mother was in an orphanage until she was
adopted at the age of six, and her birth certificate was issued at
that time.  (No, I am not sure why it happened that way.)  When she
needed a passport, she had to get sworn affidavits from all sorts
of people (the orphanage, her adoptive parents, her natural parents).
When I wanted to get a certificate of citizenship (so I could get a
tourist visa for an extended trip in Mexico), the INS said I could
get one if I could prove that both my parents were citizens, or that
my father was a citizen and that my mother was not a citizen.  But
the truly crazy thing was that, after all the effort she went through
to get a passport, INS would *NOT* accept that as proof of her
citizenship.  It should have been irrelevant, since I could show
citizenship for myself by proving that my father was a citizen, but
I was supposed to prove to the satisfaction of the INS either that
mother was or that mother was not a citizen.

The solution was to take all of our documents to the Mexican embassy,
and see if they would grant the visa on the basis of anything we had.
No problem; shortly (as in a day or two) after my birth I was added to
my mother's passport.  That was sufficient evidence for the Mexican
embassy.  Later, when I needed a passport, my inclusion in my mother's
passport was adequate for me to obtain a passport -- it wasn't a new
passport; it was simply a renewal.  I have had a passport since day
one (alright, day two or three), but to this day I don't have a certificate
of citizenship.  So far I haven't needed one; but I can vote and apparently
have all the other rights and privileges of US citizenship.

Gary Samuelson