Couple fight US over son citizenship snub

BY TOBY PORTER
toby@slpmedia.co.uk

A couple are taking on the might of President Trump’s administration after their oldest son was refused citizenship – while their younger boy was granted it.

American citizen Allison Blixt, from Streatham Hill, gave birth to their 11-month-old son Massimiliano, while her Italian wife Stefania Zaccari gave birth to Lucas, who turns three on Tuesday.

Each carried their children to term using their own eggs and both used the sperm of a donor from Denmark.

American citizenship was granted to Allison’s son, but not to Stef’s boy, says the lawsuit.

Allison’s name is on Lucas’s birth certificate, but when she tried to register him as an American citizen at the embassy, officials refused because he was not her blood relative, and her wife is not a US citizen.

Allison, a lawyer, said: “We went to the embassy in early 2015 with all the paperwork and fully expected him to get citizenship.

“After three hours of waiting, they called us to the window to ask who gave birth to him. When we said Steph had, they asked where the donor was from. We asked ‘How is that relevant?’

“They replied that he would not get citizenship, there and then. I was in utter shock and stunned. There were tears, but we did not want that to be seen in the American Embassy.”

The couple had met when Stef was on holiday in New York and moved to Streatham in 2008, after several years of seeing each other only during holidays.

“We were lucky to have made a life here,” she said. “We are not looking to move so it is not urgent. But it is important.”

The court papers, filed by campaigning organisation Immigration Equality (IE), say the US consulate denied citizenship to Lucas on the grounds that he was not a blood relation and that he was born ‘out of wedlock’.

But lawyers for Stef and Illinois-born Allison say they were legally married in England before their sons’ births.

The lawsuit, brought alongside that of a Californian couple by IE, says that, at the US consulate, “Stefania and Allison were asked a series of invasive and legally irrelevant questions about how their children were conceived and born”.

The papers claim the decision violates the Immigration and Nationality Act establishing that “babies born abroad are US citizens at birth when one of the child’s parents is a married United States citizen.

“Lucas should be able to get citizenship,” said Allison. “Being American is part of who I am. It is isolating to think he is not accepted by my country. It highlights a difference between our two boys even though they are brothers. They are basically saying I am not Lucas’s mum, despite what it says on his birth certificate. It is unfair and offensive. It makes me feel rejected that the government does not treat me as his mother. I don’t want my son to feel that.

“Stef and I both agreed 100 per cent that if there is anything we can do about this, we should. Our children being in the public eye makes us feel quite vulnerable. But there was never any doubt we should do this, to help other people who do not have the support we have. This is not the law – it is the State Department interpreting it in the wrong way.”

After a law against same-sex marriage was overturned in the US in 2013, same-sex couples were allowed – like heterosexual couples – to bring their foreign spouses into America. But the same ruling did not cover the children of same-sex couples.

Stef, who moved with Allison to Streatham from Du Cane Court, Balham, said: “Allison really felt like she had been kicked out of her own country.  But who is the biological mother should not matter. We are both mothers.”

The State Department has so far refused to comment, but its website says that to transfer a parent’s US citizenship to a child born abroad, “a biological relationship, or blood relationship, is required.”

“The laws on acquisition of US citizenship through a parent have always contemplated the existence of a blood relationship between the child and the parent(s) through whom citizenship is claimed,” the website says.

The lawsuits say that rule is contrary to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows children to inherit their married parents’ US citizenship as long as the adult has lived in the United States for five years and meets other requirements. They claim the State Department considers Allison’s children born “out of wedlock,” even though the couple are legally married.

If an American adopts a child from abroad, that child can become a naturalized U.S. citizen.

And the State Department website also says: “At least one biological parent must have been a US citizen when the child was born” for a child to qualify for birthright citizenship.

“After the Supreme Court struck off a law barring the federal recognition of same-sex marriage in 2013, Americans in such unions could legally bring their foreign spouses to the United States for the first time.”