In a shocking Circuit Court decision yesterday, the Fifth Circuit concluded that a 1978 decision of the BIA had cited a section of the Mexican constitution that didn’t even exist and that the agency had continued to use this fictional section of Mexican law to deny requests for proof of U.S. Citizenship for 35 years since. The case is called Saldana Iracheta v. Holder.
In Matter of Reyes, the Board held that when a child is born to un-wed parents in Mexico, he can only be “legitimated” by his father if his father and his mother subsequently get married to each other. This belief was based on the Board’s understanding of “Article 314 of the Constitution of Mexico.”
The Fifth Circuit, however, pointed out that there is no such section of the Constitution of Mexico, and there never was. Yet, the court noted the agency has continued to rely on this falsehood over and over, in case after case (citing numerous examples of denied AAO appeals citing this rule). It said
the BIA’s mistake in citing a non-existent constitutional provision, perpetuated and uncorrected by DHS in subsequent years, prevented the agency from making the correct inquiries or possibly from applying the correct law in subsequent cases. That error has wound its way through multiple agency decisions in immigration matters, which are significant to the impacted individuals.
The Court said whether a child had been legitimated was a question of law, not of labels. And because children born out of wedlock who are “acknowledged” have the same legal rights as those who are “legitimated” under Mexican law, the individual was a U.S. Citizen.
This case matters not just because of the shocking oversight—but because of how long it went uncorrected. For more than three decades, the BIA and the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office denied derivative citizenship claims based on a law that didn’t exist. The consequences were serious: individuals who may have been U.S. citizens were removed, denied benefits, or left in legal limbo, all based on a phantom legal standard.
The Fifth Circuit’s decision in Saldana Iracheta v. Holder, 719 F.3d 996 (5th Cir. 2013), is a rare and pointed rebuke of the BIA’s reliance on flawed foreign law interpretations. The court emphasized that adjudicators must make fact-specific inquiries and apply actual law—not unverified assumptions about foreign legal systems.
Why does this matter for practitioners? Because the standard for legitimation under INA § 309 is central to many derivative citizenship claims. If an individual born out of wedlock is deemed not to have been “legitimated,” they may be ineligible to derive citizenship from a U.S. citizen parent. But the term “legitimated” varies by country—and it must be grounded in actual law, not misreadings or invented citations.
The Fifth Circuit made clear that legitimation in Mexican law doesn’t require marriage. Rather, acknowledgment—where a father accepts paternity—is sufficient to bestow full legal rights. That makes a major difference for applicants seeking to prove U.S. citizenship through a Mexican father who acknowledged paternity but never married the child’s mother.
The decision also serves as a reminder of the critical role appellate courts play in checking agency decision-making. Immigration agencies often rely on longstanding internal precedent. But longevity doesn’t guarantee correctness. When that precedent is based on a legal fiction—as it was here—its impact compounds over time.
For attorneys handling citizenship claims, especially those involving foreign legitimation laws, Saldana Iracheta is a must-read. It underscores the need to independently verify foreign law rather than rely solely on agency interpretations. And it offers strong language to challenge decisions based on inaccurate legal assumptions.
In a broader sense, this case is about accountability. It’s about the importance of precision in the law, especially when the stakes include citizenship—a status that should never turn on a misquote of a constitution that never had the cited provision.