The Nation - News from July 28, 1989

Left-wing author Margaret Randall remained a U.S. citizen even though she became a citizen of Mexico 22 years ago to find work there and spent 15 years in Cuba and Nicaragua, an immigration appeals board ruled in blocking an effort to deport her. The U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals ruled 3 to 2 that Randall, 52, became a Mexican citizen in 1967 under economic duress and that the Immigration and Naturalization Service should not have considered her politics. “To tell you the truth, I’m still a little numb,” Randall said from her home in Albuquerque. INS claimed that Randall gave up her U.S. citizenship as a political protest and wanted Mexican citizenship to get a passport to Cuba. It also claimed that as the wife of a Mexican citizen, she could have found work.