Maria As a senior in high school, Maria601 refused to choose between her boyfriend and her ambitions. Born in Brownsville, Texas, she had grown up and gone to school in Reynosa, Mexico. Now, in her final year of high school, she had a serious boyfriend, Antonio, but also serious intentions to achieve a college degree. She chose both. Maria moved to Edinburg, Texas, where she studied accounting, earning first a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree. She graduated magna cum laude and twice represented the school in academic competitions. Through it all, she maintained her relationship with Antonio, visiting him in Reynosa. Because he was a Mexican citizen, it was more complicated for him to visit her in the U.S., but on one of his visits, he proposed to her at a Six Flags amusement park. Maria and Antonio started to plan their future together, beginning with a wedding in Texas. Maria applied for a fiancé visa for Antonio, and the two of them, plus Maria’s mother, traveled to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico for interviews. But during the interviews, Maria’s mother was taken away and interrogated for two and a half hours. Denied even a sip of water, she was browbeaten and insulted: told to admit that Maria had not been born in the U.S., and told to admit that she did not even know who Maria’s biological father was. 130 “I’m just one more number. One more chance for them to take citizenship away from someone.” UNMAKING AMERICANS