Citizenship On Hold Budget Crisis Delays Ceremony For 95-Year-Old Mexican Woman, A Longtime U.S. Resident

Esther Castro was upset.

She had paid her fee, and now the government was telling her it couldn’t send someone to her house and swear her in as a U.S. citizen.

So the 95-year-old Mexican and longtime U.S. resident will have to wait until the government’s budget crisis is resolved before she completes a 33-year quest.

Perched on the edge of her granddaughter’s couch and dressed for the occasion, she waited patiently for a federal Immigration and Naturalization Service worker to keep a Tuesday morning appointment.

The official never showed.

“She was kind of upset,” her granddaughter, Candy Archuleta, said. “She said she and all the other people paid their $95 (citizenship fee). And then they claim there is no money” to pay federal employees.

This is the second time Castro has tried to become a citizen.

In 1962, when she was working as a domestic in Beverly Hills, Calif., she applied for citizenship, but gave up because she wasn’t able to speak, read and write English.

But she never stopped thinking about it, said her daughter, Frances Fuentes.

Castro applied again in March when Archuleta’s husband applied to become a citizen. Recent changes in the law do not require residents of 25 years to know English.

Castro is proud of her contributions to the United States. She sent one son to World War II and another to Korea.

“I’ve been here more years than Mexico,” she said, with her granddaughter interpreting.

Archuleta said Castro also feared she would lose her Social Security income or even be deported to a country where she knows no one.

Castro and her husband came to Brownsville, Texas, in 1926 to find work and a better life for their two sons, George, 4, and newborn Ruben. Her late husband worked in shipyards while she raised the children.

Her only job outside the home was the six-year stint as a domestic, where she also helped raise the family’s son. The boy recently invited her to his wedding.

Castro’s family said the great-grandmother likes to hike down to the corner with her walker, go to church, read her Bible and do her own cooking. Besides some arthritis and hearing loss, she is in good health but tires quickly.

Tuesday, Castro decided to lie down, being careful not to muss her clothes, when immigration officials hadn’t shown up by noon.

When she woke up later and her family explained the federal budget squabble, she was disappointed. She was also concerned about the fee she’d squeezed from her income of Social Security, supplemental Social Security and food stamps.

“She’s already paid the $95. She’s not going to give up until she gets her citizenship,” Archuleta said.