- The Fourth Circuit ruled Mario López automatically became a citizen at age 16 via his mother.
- López was wrongfully detained for three years by ICE despite internal records previously acknowledging his citizenship.
- The court rejected the government’s argument that Salvadoran legitimation laws blocked his derivative citizenship claim.
(VIRGINIA) — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on February 13, 2026 that Mario René López automatically became a U.S. citizen at age 16 through his mother’s naturalization, rejecting the government’s bid to treat him as removable after more than three years in immigration detention.
The Fourth Circuit held that López obtained citizenship by operation of law under a now-repealed statute, a form of “derivative citizenship” that can attach automatically when statutory conditions are met, without a separate naturalization ceremony.
Judges vacated the underlying orders and sent the case back with instructions to terminate removal proceedings, concluding López was a U.S. citizen who should not have been subjected to deportation proceedings.
Court records describe López as born in El Salvador in 1981 to unmarried parents who later entered the United States as a lawful permanent resident when he was 11.
His mother naturalized in 1998, and the court said López became a citizen automatically at age 16 because he met the remaining statutory conditions for derivative citizenship.
The case shows how a citizenship claim can collide with enforcement when the government treats a person as a noncitizen despite a claim that citizenship already attached by law, particularly when prior criminal history places someone in removal posture and triggers a close look at status.
López’s custody made the legal dispute more than an abstract fight over statutory text. Court records and subsequent reporting said ICE detained him in January 2023 and kept him in custody for more than three years while the case continued.
More detail later emerged about the start of that detention. López was held in ICE custody from January 12, 2023, until his release in February 2026 following the court’s decision.
During that time, he was primarily held at the Caroline Detention Facility in Bowling Green, VA, and the Farmville Detention Center, VA, according to the accounts summarized in court records and subsequent reporting.
Spanish-language reporting from Noticias Telemundo said he was released after the recent court ruling and later described ongoing trauma from detention, saying he had “lost everything” and still had nightmares.
The legal question that drove the Fourth Circuit’s decision turned on former 8 U.S.C. § 1432(a)(3), an older citizenship law that has since been repealed but still governs some cases involving people who were minors before later reforms.
Under that framework, the dispute narrowed to whether López’s “paternity established by legitimation” blocked him from deriving citizenship through his mother.
The government argued López did not qualify for derivative citizenship because his paternity had supposedly been “established by legitimation” under Salvadoran law.
The Fourth Circuit rejected that interpretation and held that López’s paternity had not been established in the way the statute required to block derivative citizenship.
In describing the government’s position, the record emphasized changes in foreign family law and how lawyers sought to connect them to a U.S. statutory phrase. Prosecutors argued that because López’s father signed his birth certificate in El Salvador and because a 1983 Salvadoran law equalized the rights of all children, he had been “legitimated.”
The court disagreed, stating that a father’s signature on a birth certificate does not constitute “legitimation” under the specific requirements of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, as summarized in the case overview.
López’s dispute also drew attention because the government’s own internal records cut in different directions over time, with one arm of the system acknowledging citizenship while another pursued removal.
The Fourth Circuit noted that while López was still in prison years earlier, immigration officials interviewed him and prepared an official memorandum stating that he had “derived citizenship” from his U.S.-citizen mother because he was born out of wedlock and had not been legitimated by his father.
Court documents described that record more explicitly as an internal 2009 DHS Case Memorandum that stated: “Lopez derived citizenship from his [U.S. citizen] mother as he was born out of wedlock and had not been legitimized by the father.”
Despite that earlier conclusion, ICE treated López as a lawful permanent resident subject to removal during 2023–2026 while his citizenship claim remained contested in litigation.
The government’s litigation position during the case rested on the legitimation theory. Under Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi, the Department of Justice argued that López remained a citizen of El Salvador, prosecutors said, because the 1983 change to the Salvadoran constitution effectively “legitimated” him and disqualified him from deriving citizenship solely through his mother.
The Fourth Circuit’s ruling arrived amid broader scrutiny of immigration detention practices. Reuters reported in February 2026 that federal judges had ruled more than 4,400 times since October that ICE was detaining people unlawfully, underscoring how frequently detention decisions are being challenged in court.
López’s case drew attention within that environment because the court ultimately concluded he was not simply removable on the wrong legal theory, but a U.S. citizen all along.
The decision also highlights a recurring issue for lawyers and families: derivative citizenship can exist on paper as a matter of law while remaining practically unrecognized in day-to-day enforcement systems.
In López’s case, the now-repealed statute’s requirements brought highly technical concepts to the center of a custody fight, including questions of family status, legitimation, and how the legal effect of a parent’s naturalization interacts with foreign law.
The Fourth Circuit decision has been framed as significant beyond one man’s detention because it illustrates a risk of wrongful detention when citizenship is treated as a disputed defense rather than a threshold status issue that should halt removal proceedings.
The case also raised the prospect of differing approaches across courts on how foreign family-law changes interact with U.S. derivative-citizenship rules. The significance summary accompanying the case described the ruling as creating a potential split with other circuits “(such as the Ninth Circuit)” on the foreign-law question.
The government’s records in López’s file underscored how documentation gaps and inconsistent handling can shape the course of a derivative-citizenship case. The Fourth Circuit pointed to the earlier memorandum acknowledging citizenship, yet removal proceedings still went forward years later.
That contradiction became central to the narrative around the case, because it suggested that even where an official record recognizes derivative citizenship, later enforcement can proceed on a different view unless the status is consistently reflected across systems and proceedings.
The case also shows how people sometimes discover or press derivative-citizenship claims only when the stakes spike. The account summarized in the case materials described that people who may have obtained citizenship automatically through a parent often do not realize it until they are placed in removal proceedings, apply for a passport, or file Form N-600 for a Certificate of Citizenship.
Court records show López himself filed an N-600 application and included documents arguing that he acquired citizenship through his mother’s naturalization.
After the Fourth Circuit ruled, the procedural effect was immediate and concrete. The case summary said the court ordered the immediate termination of all removal proceedings against him, and subsequent reporting said he was released in February 2026 following the ruling.
López described his experience as a “nightmare.” Upon his release, he stated: “I can no longer recover the time. I just want to be free. I’ve lived here almost my whole life; this is my home.”
His account included observations from inside detention. López reported witnessing overcrowding and inadequate medical care for other detainees while he was held in Virginia, the summary stated.
The litigation also set up a potential second phase outside the immigration courts. López’s lawyer, Benjamin Osorio, announced that the family intends to file a lawsuit against the federal government for the three-year wrongful detention of a U.S. citizen, according to the case significance summary.
The case caption and docket information reflected the posture of the dispute as it reached the Fourth Circuit: Mario Rene Lopez v. Pamela Jo Bondi (No. 24-1208). The court’s published opinion, issued February 13, 2026, centered on statutory interpretation of former 8 U.S.C. § 1432(a)(3) and its “paternity established by legitimation” language.
While the decision resolved López’s status as a matter of law, the case also shows why citizenship recognition can remain complicated in practice after a derivative-citizenship ruling.
Derivative citizenship means a person is already a citizen by operation of law, but documentation can lag behind that legal reality, especially when agencies have treated the person as a noncitizen for years.
Common pathways to prove citizenship after such a ruling include seeking a U.S. passport or a Certificate of Citizenship, steps that can take on heightened importance after high-stakes litigation and prolonged detention.
López’s case, built around derivative citizenship and decided in the Fourth Circuit, has been cited as a reminder that what looks like an immigration case can turn into a citizenship case when an older statute and inconsistent records determine whether the government had authority to detain and deport someone in the first place.
