Baby born an American as mom waits to re-enter U.S.

July 2, 2008, 12:45AM

By DANE SCHILLER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

It has been said football is a game of inches, but so is life — at least when it comes to birth on the U.S.-Mexico border.

A boy born early Tuesday while his mother was in line at El Paso's Bridge of the Americas is as much a U.S. citizen as if he'd been born anywhere else in the United States.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers delivered the child as his mother — a 23-year-old Mexican woman who had a green card to live in the U.S. — went into labor. The woman walked across the bridge, which spans the Rio Grande, at 3 a.m.

She was sent to a lobby for questioning before being allowed to enter the country, although the office is on U.S. soil, said Rick Lopez, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.

The woman told officers she was going into labor, so they grabbed blankets from a nearby holding cell, Lopez said.

"They comforted her, and the baby's head started crowning," he said. "It came quick."

By the time paramedics arrived, the boy had been delivered.

Margaret Althoff-Olivas, a spokeswoman for Thomason Hospital, said the woman wanted to rest and declined an interview.

"Both mother and child are doing fine," she said.

dane.schiller@chron.com