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Woman's citizenship doesn't fly Photo by Steve Johnson Connie Marshall McGregor thought her luck was turning when she landed a job with Horizon Air. But when she tried to get a passport, she was told she's not a U.S. citizen. Mixup grounds Horizon Air hopeful By ALBERTO ENRIQUEZ Connie Marshall McGregor is as American as her natural father, a World War II-era G.I. Or her daughter who's an Army sergeant in Germany. Or her son-in-law who's a Special Forces master sergeant recently in Bosnia. Or so she thought. That changed in November, when she landed her dream job as a Horizon Airlines flight attendant. Her application for a passport has turned into a nightmare with a bureaucracy that says she's wrong. The blow is particularly sharp, coming on the heels of a bitter divorce and two years of low-paying jobs cleaning houses. "After all these years, it's shocking to be told that I'm not a citizen," Marshall says. "I told them, `Yes, I am.' But they said, `You may not be."' The 51-year-old Medford resident says the facts aren't in dispute. She has a copy of her father's birth certificate, showing Carl Turley was born in Idaho in 1917. He later served with the Army Air Corps in Italy. Turley's also listed as her father on both of her birth certificates, a civil certificate from '47 issued in Livorno, Italy, and an amended birth certificate issued a few years later when she was adopted by a couple in Aromas, Calif. She knows that Turley brought his Italian wife back to Salt Lake City, where her sister was born in August 1948. The couple had a third child, a boy, about two years later. She knows, too, that something went wrong, because after moving to California, the mother abandoned the children. They were placed with Dolan and Rose Marshall in Aromas, and after 1 years, despite a court challenge by the birth mother, the couple adopted Marshall and her two American-born siblings. After the adoption, her birth mother disappeared. And beyond a black-and-white 22mm snapshot of her swimsuit-clad natural parents, Marshall has little else to document her parentage. The photo shows Turley, 31, nearly bald, and her Italian mother, a dark-haired pregnant woman in her early 20s. The reverse reads, "fatta gingnio 28, 1966 Livorno, Italia." Marshall doesn't know what it means. But she needs documentation to get her passport, and the job. The passport office sent an affidavit to be signed by Marshall's natural father; Turley died in Boise in 1988. Officials also requested veterans documentation; Marshall can prove her father received a veteran's burial, but his wartime records were destroyed by fire. "At this point, everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong," says Marshall, who is resuming use of her maiden name when her divorce is final. And her luck has yet to turn. The Immigration and Naturalization Service in Portland mailed her a citizenship application, but Marshall had to write back and explain that it didn't cover her situation. The paperwork was geared to aliens, not the child of a G.I. who legally entered the country with a war bride and child. "Now, the passport people are asking me for things I can't possibly come up with in so short a time," Marshall says. "They want a marriage certificate from a foreign country." Although her new employer has been patient to date, giving her until Jan. 6 to get her passport, she fears she won't make it. Marshall's adoptive father, Dolan Marshall, 78, still runs the same Aromas country store he did 50 years ago. Reached at work Monday, Dolan Marshall said he never had any question about his daughter's citizenship, or he would have looked into it. "We adopted her when she was 3," he said. "It was all legal and in the trial papers. We don't know how she could have come in the country without a passport." Two childhood chums who'd been with Marshall from kindergarten through college, Mary Redfield of Anaconda, Mont., and Sandy Davis of Medford, said Monday that they were shocked to hear their friend's citizenship questioned. "I think it's ridiculous -- I think it's stupid -- the most horrible thing," Redfield said by phone Monday. "Here she has this great opportunity. All she needs is a passport, and it's passing her by." Marshall herself remains hopeful. Having paid taxes all her life, she said all she wants is an opportunity to work. "Maybe there's someone out there who knows something who can help," she said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA