Iraq war veteran may be denied citizenshipBy Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times
April 26, 2010
Ekaterine Bautista holds a photograph of her taken in Iraq. She earned commendations during her years in the Army.
(Rick Loomis / LA Times / April 21, 2010)Just five days before Ekaterine Bautista planned to become an American citizen, she got a call from the federal government: Her swearing-in ceremony had been canceled pending further investigation.
Bautista was devastated. An illegal immigrant from Mexico, she had served six years in the U.S. military — including a 13-month tour of duty in Iraq — and was eligible to apply for naturalization under a decades-old law.
But approval of her case depended on the discretion of citizenship officials. Bautista had served in the military under a false identity, that of her U.S. citizen aunt, Rosalia Guerra Morelos.
She passed the civics exam, completed all the paperwork and received a letter telling her to show up at the Los Angeles Convention Center on March 31. Then the call came.
"Yeah, I made a mistake," Bautista, 35, said. "But if you look back at my records, I never did anything wrong in the military. On the contrary."
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