Because they were not born in hospitals, some Casa de Nacimiento children were now finding their citizenship claims subjected to extreme scrutiny.
One of the alleged spies reportedly used the birth certificate of a Canadian infant who died in the 1960s, but it's not clear what documents supported the citizenship claims made by the other accused.
GOP candidates have resisted a path to citizenship, claiming this would be an unfair reward for undocumented individuals.
Mr. Levinson recommended additional safeguards, including spot checks of Medicaid recipients to verify citizenship claims.
Now, because there is democracy in Haiti, the United States has a simple excuse for rejecting Haitian citizenship claims: Haitians are economic, not political migrants.
Although black leaders became increasingly militant in their attacks against slavery and other forms of racial oppression, their efforts to secure equal rights received a major setback in 1857, when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected African American citizenship claims.
Citizenship claims have been the elemental political and legal arguments of generations of African-Americans, none more important than that made by Dred Scott, in 1857, and denied by the Supreme Court, which ruled that no descendant of any "negro of the African race" could ever be a citizen of the United States.
It does say, however, that Rohingya citizenship claims should be addressed - but provides no new solutions saying they should only be allowed normal rights when they become citizens.
He told me individuals born and living abroad more frequently contact US consulates asserting citizenship claims because they have realized they qualify for citizenship through a parent.
"Its very common actually," said immigration attorney Holly Cooper, co-director of the immigration law clinic at UC Davis, who specializes in citizenship claims and handled the brothers' case.
