Lower Court Holding in Morales-Santana v. Lynch
Decision of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Luis Ramon Morales-Santana asks us to review a March 3, 2011, decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying his motion to reopen his removal proceedings relating to his claim of derivative citizenship. Under the statute in effect when Morales-Santana was born — the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) — a child born abroad to an unwed citizen mother and non-citizen father has citizenship at birth so long as the mother was present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of at least one year at some point prior to…