Courts And Justice
Birth records sink a Texas man’s citizenship case
Hector Xavier Cortez said he was born in Laredo and should be treated as a U.S. citizen. The court said conflicting records, late filing and discretionary passport decisions blocked his lawsuit.
A Texas man who says he was born in Laredo lost again in federal court. The Fifth Circuit said his citizenship case against Secretary Marco Rubio’s State Department could not move forward under the statutes he used.
- The Fifth Circuit left Cortez without a court path to citizenship recognition.
- He says he was born in Laredo, Texas, but passport applications were denied.
- The State Department cited conflicting birth records and a suspect birth attendant.
- The ruling keeps his passport fight in place for now.
- A Texas man who says he was born in Laredo lost his latest round in the federal Fifth Circuit, which left standing the dismissal of Hector Xavier Cortez’s lawsuit against the State Department
A Texas man who says he was born in Laredo lost his latest round in the federal Fifth Circuit, which left standing the dismissal of Hector Xavier Cortez’s lawsuit against the State Department. His case sought recognition under 8 U.S.C. § 1503(a), the Administrative Procedure Act, or APA, and the Mandamus Act.
That matters because citizenship is not just a label. For people like Cortez, it is the difference between getting a passport, proving the right to travel as an American and convincing the government to accept what they say their birth record already shows.
The papers behind the claim
The dispute grew out of a passport Cortez used to travel to Mexico about a decade ago. He reported it stolen there, later found it, and when he returned to the United States, the passport was retained. Since then, he says he has filed at least four passport applications, and all were denied.
The State Department pointed to doubts about his claimed Texas birth, including a birth attendant suspected of submitting false birth records and a conflicting Mexican birth certificate. Officials also said he did not supply enough early-life records to back up the Laredo claim.
Why the court would not reopen it
The Fifth Circuit said Cortez’s Section 1503 claim came too late, and later passport applications did not restart the clock. It also rejected the APA theory because Section 1503 already offers an adequate remedy for the kind of citizenship dispute he brought.
Mandamus did not help either, because passport decisions are discretionary. The result is blunt: the dismissal stands, and Cortez does not get the immediate court path he wanted to a judicial declaration of citizenship.