State Department Informs Illinois Woman that She No Longer Appears to Be American
Feb 18, 2010, 1:05 pm
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State Department Informs Illinois Woman that She No Longer Appears to Be American
Illinois Woman Told She Is No Longer an American
Angela Boneva is living in limbo.
For years she, and the U.S. government, thought the Bulgarian-born 34-year-old was an American citizen. But, when she went to renew her passport in 2003, the State Department reportedly told her something terribly different.
Boneva's father was born in Indiana, and the consulate in Bulgaria gave her U.S. citizenship while she was growing up in the country in 1981. She was able to visit relatives in Chicago and eventually move to the area in 1997, the Chicago Tribune reported.
......
"I thought it was some kind of joke," she told the Tribune. "I grew up believing I'm an American, and now they want to take that away? This is like a bad dream."
The State Department said in the letter that an employee at the consulate broke a rule that required her father to have lived in the U.S. for 10 years before she was born, the Tribune reported. Her father had only lived in the U.S. for six years before moving to Bulgaria.
The letter also pointed out that that requirement changed in 1986 to five years, meaning that someone in the Boneva's position today would be eligible for U.S. citizenship, but she isn't.
.....
Since then, Boneva has made numerous attempts to get he situation cleared up, but has never received a straight answer from the State Department, the Tribune reported.
State Department spokeswoman Adriana Gallegos declined to talk with the Tribune about Boneva's situation, but told the paper in an e-mail, "We don't revoke citizenship, we revoke documents." Gallegos wouldn't specify to the newspaper what that meant for Boneva.
Angela Boneva is living in limbo.
For years she, and the U.S. government, thought the Bulgarian-born 34-year-old was an American citizen. But, when she went to renew her passport in 2003, the State Department reportedly told her something terribly different.
Boneva's father was born in Indiana, and the consulate in Bulgaria gave her U.S. citizenship while she was growing up in the country in 1981. She was able to visit relatives in Chicago and eventually move to the area in 1997, the Chicago Tribune reported.
......
"I thought it was some kind of joke," she told the Tribune. "I grew up believing I'm an American, and now they want to take that away? This is like a bad dream."
The State Department said in the letter that an employee at the consulate broke a rule that required her father to have lived in the U.S. for 10 years before she was born, the Tribune reported. Her father had only lived in the U.S. for six years before moving to Bulgaria.
The letter also pointed out that that requirement changed in 1986 to five years, meaning that someone in the Boneva's position today would be eligible for U.S. citizenship, but she isn't.
.....
Since then, Boneva has made numerous attempts to get he situation cleared up, but has never received a straight answer from the State Department, the Tribune reported.
State Department spokeswoman Adriana Gallegos declined to talk with the Tribune about Boneva's situation, but told the paper in an e-mail, "We don't revoke citizenship, we revoke documents." Gallegos wouldn't specify to the newspaper what that meant for Boneva.
So many years after the State Department's authorized official approved the application for the Consular Report of Birth Abroad of a Citizen of the United States of America (CRBA) that recognized her as a natural-born US citizen by way of her Indiana-born US citizen father, what made the State Department review the CBRA application and revoke the CRBA document and the recognition of US citizenship that comes by way of it?
Feb 18, 2010, 1:38 pm
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This whole situation is stupid. There should be a statute of limitations on such things... if they let her sponsor her husband for citizenship they should just wash their hands of the whole mess and say "we screwed up, sorry for the trouble, have a nice day Mrs. US Citizen."
Feb 18, 2010, 1:44 pm
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This whole situation is stupid. There should be a statute of limitations on such things... if they let her sponsor her husband for citizenship they should just wash their hands of the whole mess and say "we screwed up, sorry for the trouble, have a nice day Mrs. US Citizen."
Feb 18, 2010, 2:09 pm
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The State Department decided in 1981 to recognize this woman as a natural-born US citizen by way of her father being a natural-born US citizen.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,5694828.story
Exasperated, Boneva hired a lawyer, who proposed an ironic solution: Since her Bulgarian-born husband, Gueorgui Petrov, 36, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2008 after Boneva sponsored him 10 years earlier, he could turn around and sponsor her to become a naturalized U.S. citizen — if, indeed, she is not a citizen now.
"What is the value of wasting time yanking this woman's citizenship when she did nothing wrong?" said David Leopold, president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington. "The system is counterintuitive and confusing even in the best-case scenario."
......
Digging through old records to show U.S. officials, she learned of her family's late 19th century roots in Akron, Ohio. Boneva's grandfather Pete Boneff was born there in 1895 — his parents part of a wave of Eastern Europeans who arrived in the Midwest. There are currently about 20,000 Bulgarians in the Chicago area.
Her father, Steve Boneff, 80, was born in South Bend, Ind., where his parents had settled. He remembers playing with other American children until his homesick mother took him and his older brother Boris back to Bulgaria. Grandfather Pete Boneff remained in the U.S. with two sisters.
During Boneva's research, her father finally shared details about how, as a young man in Bulgaria during the Cold War, he was sent to a communist labor camp for being a U.S. citizen.
In 1949, Pete Boneff died. By then, Bulgaria had become a fiercely repressive Soviet bloc country, making it difficult to return to the U.S. to settle family affairs.
Steve Boneff tried anyway and, after making travel arrangements, he was arrested on the street in their hometown, Rousse. He was sent to a labor camp for a few months, released, then arrested again and served another year and a half, Boneff said.
.....
Speaking through an interpreter, Boneff said he was forced to sign Bulgarian government paperwork "renouncing" his U.S. citizenship before he was set free. However, that never affected his official status with the U.S. government.
"(U.S. citizenship) is something you cling to," Boneff said.
Boneva, born in 1975, grew up in Rousse believing the same thing.
As a child, between long family vacations to Chicago, she used her U.S. passport to get into exclusive "dollar stores" in Rousse where imported chocolate and other coveted goods were available to those with foreign currency. "I knew: 'I'm different than other people in Bulgaria because I'm an American citizen,'" she said.
"What is the value of wasting time yanking this woman's citizenship when she did nothing wrong?" said David Leopold, president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington. "The system is counterintuitive and confusing even in the best-case scenario."
......
Digging through old records to show U.S. officials, she learned of her family's late 19th century roots in Akron, Ohio. Boneva's grandfather Pete Boneff was born there in 1895 — his parents part of a wave of Eastern Europeans who arrived in the Midwest. There are currently about 20,000 Bulgarians in the Chicago area.
Her father, Steve Boneff, 80, was born in South Bend, Ind., where his parents had settled. He remembers playing with other American children until his homesick mother took him and his older brother Boris back to Bulgaria. Grandfather Pete Boneff remained in the U.S. with two sisters.
During Boneva's research, her father finally shared details about how, as a young man in Bulgaria during the Cold War, he was sent to a communist labor camp for being a U.S. citizen.
In 1949, Pete Boneff died. By then, Bulgaria had become a fiercely repressive Soviet bloc country, making it difficult to return to the U.S. to settle family affairs.
Steve Boneff tried anyway and, after making travel arrangements, he was arrested on the street in their hometown, Rousse. He was sent to a labor camp for a few months, released, then arrested again and served another year and a half, Boneff said.
.....
Speaking through an interpreter, Boneff said he was forced to sign Bulgarian government paperwork "renouncing" his U.S. citizenship before he was set free. However, that never affected his official status with the U.S. government.
"(U.S. citizenship) is something you cling to," Boneff said.
Boneva, born in 1975, grew up in Rousse believing the same thing.
As a child, between long family vacations to Chicago, she used her U.S. passport to get into exclusive "dollar stores" in Rousse where imported chocolate and other coveted goods were available to those with foreign currency. "I knew: 'I'm different than other people in Bulgaria because I'm an American citizen,'" she said.
Feb 18, 2010, 2:16 pm
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There ought to be a time limit to the government reversing administrative decisions made in favor of a person.
A civilized country would have the government honor all its administrative decisions made in favor of a person even if soon later it was found that the administrative decision was a product of the government's mistake and involved no fraud on the part of the person (or representatives of, or on behalf of, the person) in receipt of a favorable government decision.
A civilized country would have the government honor all its administrative decisions made in favor of a person even if soon later it was found that the administrative decision was a product of the government's mistake and involved no fraud on the part of the person (or representatives of, or on behalf of, the person) in receipt of a favorable government decision.
Feb 19, 2010, 5:55 am
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Feb 19, 2010, 6:46 am
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If her name were Juanita Fernandez from Oaxaca, I wonder if there'd be such an outcry.
Feb 19, 2010, 6:53 am
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Had the State Department, another federal agency, or a government contractor only more recently gone back to: (a) enter into a database and/or use the records from decade(s) old CRBA applications; and/or (b) run queries based on the "digitized" records? Is that what resulted in this belated discovery of an administrative decision being reached in contravention of applicable law at the time of this woman's birth?
What's next, attempts to invalidate the citizenship of even dead people?
Feb 19, 2010, 7:05 am
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Government administrative decisions favorable to an applicant should be respected by the government in the absence of an ability to demonstrate in a timely manner that the favorable decision was a product of fraud committed on the part of the person (or representatives of, or on behalf of, the person) in receipt of the favorable government administrative decision.
Last edited by GUWonder; Feb 19, 2010 at 7:12 am
Feb 19, 2010, 12:06 pm
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I am still wondering what sparked this situation for her. Was it sparked by a need/request for a replacement CRBA?
Her lawyer ought to be dealing with the actions of the State Department's Office of Policy Review and Inter-Agency Liaison (PRI) and the State Department's Office of Legal Affairs and Law Enforcement Liaison/Legal Affairs Division (LA).
For situations like this it's the State Department's Office of Policy Review and Inter-Agency Liaison (PRI) that initially examines things before the State Department's Office of Legal Affairs and Law Enforcement Liaison/Legal Affairs Division (LA) makes its own assessment and takes action such as revoking an FS-240 or other such CRBA-equivalent.
Couldn't the State Department do the same kind of thing to the overwhelming majority of natural-born US citizens who were born abroad -- including children born abroad to US diplomatic or US military personnel stationed abroad -- by doubting the biological relationship between the person named on a duly-authorized CRBA-type of document and that person's US citizen parent(s)?
Time for the grave diggers and DNA testers to get into action?
Her lawyer ought to be dealing with the actions of the State Department's Office of Policy Review and Inter-Agency Liaison (PRI) and the State Department's Office of Legal Affairs and Law Enforcement Liaison/Legal Affairs Division (LA).
For situations like this it's the State Department's Office of Policy Review and Inter-Agency Liaison (PRI) that initially examines things before the State Department's Office of Legal Affairs and Law Enforcement Liaison/Legal Affairs Division (LA) makes its own assessment and takes action such as revoking an FS-240 or other such CRBA-equivalent.
Couldn't the State Department do the same kind of thing to the overwhelming majority of natural-born US citizens who were born abroad -- including children born abroad to US diplomatic or US military personnel stationed abroad -- by doubting the biological relationship between the person named on a duly-authorized CRBA-type of document and that person's US citizen parent(s)?
Time for the grave diggers and DNA testers to get into action?
Last edited by GUWonder; Feb 19, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Feb 19, 2010, 2:12 pm
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Feb 20, 2010, 10:36 pm
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There's something odd here-- when I applied for a consular report of birth for my kids, I had to prove I had lived in the US for 5 years AFTER THE AGE OF 14. Doesn't sound like her father met the new requirement, either.
Which is neither here nor there, the situation is still ridiculous.
As for how it came up at all, I suspect she had to send in her consular report of birth to apply for a passport and they checked it against a database. -- I had to send it in for my daughter to renewal her passport, even though she'd already been issued one once.
K.
Which is neither here nor there, the situation is still ridiculous.
As for how it came up at all, I suspect she had to send in her consular report of birth to apply for a passport and they checked it against a database. -- I had to send it in for my daughter to renewal her passport, even though she'd already been issued one once.
K.
Feb 21, 2010, 3:39 am
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About her father and the "new"/current requirement applicable to US citizen fathers, the requirement is that (prior to the child's birth) the US citizen father must have lived a minimum of 5 years in the US, with at least 2 of those 5 years occurring after the US citizen father reached 14 years of age.
Her father certainly meets the "new"/current requirement to transmit citizenship to anyone born on or after November 14, 1986. The problem is his daughter was born before then.
The old, initial standard for a US citizen father to be eligible to have his foreign-born children considered natural-born US citizens was signed by George Washington; and that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson era standard only required that the US citizen father had to have lived at least one year in the US prior to the birth of the child abroad.
If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's law about natural-born US citizens born outside of the US was still the law, this Bulgarian-born daughter of his would be a natural-born US citizen.
Originally Posted by kaye
As for how it came up at all, I suspect she had to send in her consular report of birth to apply for a passport and they checked it against a database. -- I had to send it in for my daughter to renewal her passport, even though she'd already been issued one once.
It's my opinion that we should go back to the requirement as US President George Washington signed it in 1790, with the only change being that the law should not discriminate against US citizen mothers.
[The current law about natural-born US citizens born abroad discriminates against US citizen fathers, and it also discriminates against US citizen mothers and fathers who are not in the employment of the federal government.]
Last edited by GUWonder; Feb 21, 2010 at 2:17 pm