Un Verdadero Sobrino Vivo de su Tío Sam

The nationality always says "Mexican" on a Border Crossing Card;

As you know by now, if you have any interest at all in the saga of the born-in-Dallas teenager who was held by the Border Patrol and ICE for three weeks while they figured out whose citizen he is really, he was released yesterday although may still be pending some charges.

Here's a typical story, Francisco Erwin Galicia showed officers his Texas ID, but they believed it was fake, in which we learn:

“When he was a child, Galicia's mother, who is not living in the US legally, took out a tourist visa for her son, listing his birthplace as Mexico, so he could cross the border and visit relatives, the AP reported. She was unable to get a US passport for the boy because her name didn't match how she had identified herself on his birth certificate, [his lawyer] Galan said.”

The quote is from Buzzfeed but that story, in pretty much exactly those words, has been in every account I’ve seen of this incident.

The funny thing is that story makes no sense on any level. You can’t ‘take out’ a visa for someone else. Galicia’s mother had to misrepresent facts and commit fraud in order to get her minor child a Border Crossing Card, something the USG issues only to citizens of and residents in Mexico. Moreover, she had to do it with enough expertise to fool a U.S. Consular Officer when she brought her son in for an interview and review of his - fraudulent? - documents proving he was a Mexican citizen and resident.

And there was no reason for her to get a BCC for her son in the first place. The phony name she used on his Texas birth certificate would not have prevented Galicia from getting a U.S. passport, after which he could freely go back and forth across the Mexican border all he liked. A U.S. citizen has no need for a BCC.

So the story as it's been pried loose by ICE is not likely to be the whole truth or the final word. But the one thing that’s absolutely, perfectly, crystal clear in this story is that Galicia’s mother has a piss-poor regard for U.S. law. CBP ought to let the kid go and arrest her.