René López says he still has nightmares about the three years he spent detained in ICE custody.
“It’s an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” López said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo from his home in Alexandria, Virginia.
About a decade ago, immigration officials argued that the citizenship López obtained as a minor through his naturalized mother was not valid. This put him on a path to deportation because of a previous drug conviction when he was younger.
During those years, López always insisted that he was a U.S. citizen when he was questioned by ICE officers, his lawyers, judges and journalists.
“I came from El Salvador with permanent residency when I was 11 years old, and when my mother became a citizen, I was 16 years old, so I automatically obtained citizenship derived from my mother. That’s how it was,” he said.
According to the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, derivative citizenship refers to the automatic acquisition of U.S. citizenship by children under 18 years of age through the citizenship status of their parents and, under certain circumstances, by adopted children of U.S. citizens born abroad.
López was detained by ICE officials in January 2023 and was held at the Caroline Detention Facility in Bowling Green, Virginia. He was not released until Feb. 13 of this year after the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a ruling that not only stopped his deportation, but also reaffirmed that he’s a U.S. citizen.
“The court says in its decision that he has been an American citizen since 1998. That’s why they are releasing him,” said Benjamin Osorio, López’s lawyer.
Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment from Noticias Telemundo on López’s case.
Why was a U.S. citizen detained by ICE?
López’s arrest was the final step in a long process in which he had to fight the courts to try to have his citizenship recognized.
López came to the U.S. as a legal resident after his mom, a legal resident and a single mother, completed the paperwork to bring him from El Salvador in the early 1990s. When he was 16, his mother became a naturalized U.S. citizen and he automatically acquired derivative citizenship under Title 8, Section 1432 of the U.S. Code, the law in effect at that time.
At age 20, López was convicted of drug offenses (in 2004 and 2005) and served a seven-year prison sentence. During his time in prison, he was visited by officials from DHS, who in 2009 determined that he had obtained U.S. citizenship through his mother.
“They came to see me in 2009 and declared that I was a citizen,” López said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo last year, while he was in custody.
After his release from prison in 2011, López rebuilt his life: He finished high school, learned electrical work, started his own company and spent more than a decade working, married and raising his children without further legal trouble.
However, in 2016, according to court papers and López’s attorney, DHS changed its position, deemed him a legal resident but not a citizen and initiated removal proceedings because of his previous drug conviction.
From that time until his eventual immigration detention in 2023, López and his attorneys had been trying to prove he had legitimately acquired U.S. citizenship through his single mother.
The government argued that the Salvadoran constitution had eliminated legal distinctions between children born in or out of wedlock, meaning that deriving citizenship from his mother was not enough.
“He would have had to prove that his father was also naturalized, but apparently his father never had a relationship with him,” said Charles Wheeler, a senior attorney with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network.
López said that in 2023, “one day I went to work and about eight immigration agents were waiting for me.” The agents told him he wasn’t a citizen, that he was still a legal resident with “aggravated felonies,” and that he was now deportable.
The ruling that declares him a citizen
Last month, the 4th Circuit issued its decision concluding that López met the requirements of the law that governed derivative citizenship before its reform in 2001. The judges analyzed Salvadoran law on parentage and legitimation, as well as López’s family history, to determine whether or not his biological father had “established paternity” in the required legal sense.
“They concluded that my father never established paternity and never made me a legitimate son, even though his name appeared on my birth certificate,” López explained. Essentially, the court agreed that his mom had been his sole parent and legal guardian, so deriving U.S. citizenship from her alone had been legal.
Immigration attorney Enrique Espinoza recommends that people with parents who are U.S. citizens by naturalization or birth consult with a lawyer and, if possible, obtain formal proof of citizenship — such as the N-600 certificate or a U.S. passport — before a misunderstanding turns into a crisis.
In fact, Espinoza said it’s not uncommon for people to have acquired U.S. citizenship through their parents “and not know it — that really does happen.”
'ICE should not detain U.S. citizens'
Following the recent court decision, López’s legal team is focusing on obtaining all the necessary citizenship certification and pursuing some form of redress.
“We are going to sue the government. ICE should not detain American citizens,” said Osorio, López's attorney. After three years in prison, López lost his business as an electrician.
“He has lost his job. He has lost a lot. We are going to try to recover his money,” Osorio said.
“This has cost me dearly; I’ve lost everything. My family had to endure a very unpleasant experience because of my unjust arrest, even though they knew I was an American citizen,” López said.
While his legal team continues working on his case, López says he is trying to return to a normal life and always carries a copy of the 4th Circuit’s decision in case a police officer or federal agent arrests him again. His main goal is to rebuild his electrical company and resume working with the contractors who knew him before his arrest.
“I can’t get that time back — what’s lost is lost,” López said. “Now I have to start over. I have many contacts who know that my dedication and honesty at work are 100% guaranteed.”
During the long nights while he was detained, López began writing songs about his legal situation and what he saw in the detention centers. He wrote that his family kept him going as he fought the government, and that the “love of my family continues to wait for me.”
An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.
