Citizenship case raises questions

Maria Teresa Payan de Castillo's citizenship has been in limbo since mid-September when agents at the Brownsville-Matamoros border said her passport was the product of fraud.

She had used the document - issued in her name by the federal government - to cross the border 89 times before she was apprehended.

The case now raises questions about the tenuousness of citizenship - and the possibility one's legal status could be substantiated by documents that are later called into question.

Magistrate Judge John Froeschner denied Payan de Castillo's request to reduce bond from $25,000 to $5,000 on Tuesday, calling her a flight risk in light of a federal prosecutor's allegations that she lied about her place of birth to obtain a passport.

U.S. Attorney Joseph Leonard said that Payan de Castillo had twice sworn under oath in the 1990s that she was a Mexican citizen. In 1998, he added, she used someone else's alien registration card to cross the border.

Her attorney, Juan Magallanes, explained that Payan de Castillo did not know until recently that she was born in the United States.

"When she found out her true status - that she was born here when her father worked under the Bracero program - she got everything together to apply for her passport," he said.

In 2004, she received a delayed birth certificate from the Texas Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics and then used that document to apply for a social security card, voter's registration card and a passport. The documents were granted without regard to Payan de Castillo's previous immigration infractions.

After shedding doubt on Payan de Castillo's citizenship, prosecutors did not explain how she was able to obtain a passport in the first place.