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Mexican border residents and members of the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR) march on a road towards a detention center for migrants at the border between the U.S and Mexico in El Paso, Texas, August 24, 2014. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez In the 1990 romantic comedy Green Card, an American girl played by Andie MacDowell marries French guy Gérard Depardieu. It’s a win-win. He gets citizenship. She gets to put “married” on an application for a fabulous Manhattan apartment that weirdly requires she not be single. » Subscribe in iTunes » Subscribe using RSS Marriage and citizenship often go hand in hand in the U.S. Our immigration system privileges people with family ties to this country. But there’s an exception to the rule. And this exception has affected about half a million people, according to immigration experts. It’s a law, known as the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which says that anyone who enters the U.S. illegally, stays for more than a year and then returns to their native country, is barred from entering the U.S. for 10 years. And if they’ve entered the U.S. illegally more than once, it’s a lifetime bar. For this week’s Shortwave, P.J. Tobia interviews a family that’s been barred for years under this act from returning to the United States. Last month we reported on deported veterans of the U.S. military. You can listen to that episode here. The post When marriage and citizenship don’t go hand in hand appeared first on PBS NewsHour.