INS detainee David Sebastian believes he is a U.S. citizen.
The
Immigration and Naturalization Service sees Sebastian as just one of
tens
of thousands of deportable aliens.

But as Sebastian tells it, the outcome of his case turns on a swear.

As a Jehovah's Witness, he said he took a "modified oath" of
citizenship
designed for religions that forbid followers to swear or take oaths.

"I affirmed my citizenship on March 11, 1988, in the Miami district
office
of the INS," Sebastian said, pointing to a rule listed in the INS
Operation
Instructions booklet that states "when any naturalization . . . is
executed
by affirmation . . . the word 'affirm' shall be substituted for the
word
'swear' . . . the words 'so help me (us) God' shall be stricken."

When he was 2 years old, Sebastian's parents moved him and his siblings
from Cuba to Miami in 1969. He never left Miami and studied computer
programming after high school. Sebastian, who eventually married and
had
two daughters, worked for a small company as a programmer in Miami for
several years. In the late 1980s, he says he began selling boats.

"The biggest mistake of my life," Sebastian told the Herald as he
described
how he started dealing in stolen boats as the boat-selling business
diminished.

He was arrested for transporting stolen property between Miami and the
Caribbean and served 5½ years in prison. After completing his sentence,
the
INS transferred him into its custody and began deportation proceedings,
according to a law requiring deportation of all felons who are not U.S.
citizens.