Photo courtesy of Congressman Richard E. Neal (D-Massachusetts, 1st District).
The widespread myth that ICE is deporting U.S. citizens is supported by a handful of unusual cases involving derivative citizenship.
Derivative citizenship means a child automatically becomes a U.S. citizen when a foreign parent naturalizes, provided the child meets specific legal conditions, generally being under 18, holding lawful permanent resident status, residing in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the citizen parent, and the parent having become a U.S. citizen before the child turned 18.
Derivative citizenship is distinct from acquisition of citizenship, which applies when a child is born abroad to U.S. citizen parents and becomes a citizen at birth. Individuals who derive citizenship may later apply for a Certificate of Citizenship, Form N-600, to document that status.
In most high-profile cases where derivative citizenship is claimed, the individuals had prior criminal records that led to removal proceedings. Citizenship claims were often raised or reexamined only after those proceedings began. In these cases, individuals were arrested for non-immigration crimes and, in some instances, had already been incarcerated for other offenses. A further common factor is the failure to produce documentation proving U.S. citizenship at the time of arrest or detention.
Derivative citizenship, like chain migration, is an area President Trump should look into and consider halting. It complicates immigration enforcement and fuels anti-enforcement narratives built on rare, exceptional cases rather than the reality of how immigration law functions.
Chanthila Souvannarath was born in a Thai refugee camp in 1981 and came to the United States as an infant with lawful permanent residence. He claims derivative citizenship based on his father’s naturalization when Souvannarath was 13 and living in his custody following his parents’ divorce. His case arose after a serious criminal history, including 2004 convictions for unlawful firearm possession and second-degree domestic assault, along with a prior misdemeanor assault. He lost his green card and received a removal order in 2006. In October 2025, he was deported to Laos despite a federal judge issuing a temporary restraining order finding a “substantial claim” to U.S. citizenship. ICE maintains the order was served after the deportation had already been executed.
Mario René López was born in El Salvador and entered the United States at age 12 as a lawful permanent resident. He claims derivative citizenship through his mother, who naturalized in 1998 while he was still a minor. His claim turns on whether he was born out of wedlock without legitimation, which would allow citizenship to derive through his mother alone. The government argues that El Salvador’s 1983 constitutional reform eliminated distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate children, thereby legitimizing him and requiring proof that his father also naturalized. López had no relationship with his father, who never became a citizen. He has been detained for more than two years following a prior criminal conviction, with his case pending before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The 2009 decision in Flores-Torres v. Holder supports his claim.
The Brian Bukle case is another derivative citizenship matter and one of the few instances cited as evidence that ICE was forced to pay damages, though public portrayals differ sharply from the underlying facts. Advocacy accounts often begin with Bukle’s transfer into ICE custody while omitting how he entered the prison system. Bukle was convicted of assault and firearm possession and served a state prison sentence from July 2018 to June 2020. After completing that sentence, he was transferred from the California prison system into ICE custody in June 2020 and held at the Mesa Verde facility in Bakersfield for 36 days.
Bukle repeatedly told officials he was a U.S. citizen, but neither California prison officials nor ICE verified his status at that time. A verbal claim is not proof of citizenship, and assertions that officials failed to verify his status are misleading. Bukle had no documentation establishing citizenship, and his claim was legally contested. He was born in the British Virgin Islands in 1959 and entered the United States in 1961 as a lawful permanent resident. In 1968, when Bukle was nine, his parents naturalized as U.S. citizens. Under the law in effect at the time, minor children who were lawful permanent residents automatically derived citizenship when their parents naturalized.
Evidence supporting that conclusion includes the fact that Bukle’s twin brother received a certificate of citizenship in the 1980s and his sister received one in 2006, both citing their parents’ 1968 naturalization. An INS officer also concluded in the 1990s that Bukle was a U.S. citizen during an investigation. There is no indication, however, that Bukle himself ever applied for or received a certificate of citizenship. Derivative citizenship is automatic, but proof is not. Without documentation, there is no record in immigration databases confirming citizenship. When ICE reviewed Bukle’s file, it reflected a foreign-born individual with a criminal conviction and no citizenship documentation on record.
Bukle’s derivative citizenship was ultimately established when immigration attorneys obtained and presented his parents’ naturalization records and demonstrated statutory timing requirements. That process took 36 days. Bukle filed a federal civil lawsuit on November 22, 2021, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging false arrest and false imprisonment. In 2022, he reached a $150,000 settlement with the federal government. Plaintiffs described the settlement as compensation for ICE’s illegal arrest and detention, but a settlement is not a judicial finding after trial and typically includes no admission of liability.
Another case is even more complicated. Davino Watson was born in Jamaica and came to the United States at age 14 in 1998. His father naturalized in 2002, which automatically made Watson a U.S. citizen under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000. Watson was 23 when ICE arrested him in 2008.
In 2007, Watson pleaded guilty to selling cocaine. When his sentence ended in May 2008, ICE took him into custody. Watson told ICE he was a U.S. citizen and provided his father’s and stepmother’s names and phone number, which appeared in his pre-sentence report. ICE did not contact them. Contacting parents is not considered legal proof of citizenship. Instead, agents searched their database for “Hopeton Ulando Watson” but located records for “Hopeton Livingston Watson,” a different person who was not a U.S. citizen, lived in Connecticut rather than New York, did not have a son named Davino, and entered the United States at a different time. ICE failed to notice these discrepancies and concluded Watson was deportable.
Watson was detained for 1,273 days, roughly three and a half years. He contested the case for 811 days before obtaining a lawyer. He was released in November 2011 and received a certificate of citizenship on November 26, 2013. In district court, Judge Weinstein found ICE liable for false imprisonment for the first 27 days and awarded $82,500 in damages. On appeal, the Second Circuit reversed on statute-of-limitations grounds, holding that the two-year limitations period expired.
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