Mario “Jr.” De la Fuente Mix, 43, was released from Maricopa County Jail Friday evening after his immigration attorney demonstrated his client has evidence to prove he “derived” United States citizenship from his mother.

Earlier in the week, De la Fuente Mix and his father, Mario De la Fuente Manriquez, a cable and newspaper magnate in Nogales, Sonora were released on their own recognizance in a multi-million-dollar fraud case in the Phoenix area.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “put a hold” on the younger De la Fuente due to questions regarding his citizenship status. But in a case where blood ties may prove stronger than border fences, he was allowed to join his wife and children after 16 days behind bars.

The case underscores the complexities and dynamics of living in a bi-cultural border community where families and business interests overlap, immigration attorney Luis Parra said in letters to Presiding Judge Gary E. Donahoe of Maricopa County Superior Court.

While De la Fuente Mix was born in Mexico, his father was born in Nogales, Ariz., so De la Fuente Manriquez’s release went without a snag last week.

De la Fuente Mix’s mother, Irma Gloria Mix, was born in Nogales, Sonora in 1943, according to the letters obtained from a court official.

Her father, Alfredo Mix, was born in the United States. But as a result of his temporary employment with an American utility company she was born in Mexico.

Parra said that as such, “Mrs. Mixwas entitled to birthright citizenship under the universal right of jus sanguinis (right of blood.) Thus, Ms. Mix applied for and on May 13, 1965, the Commission of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service granted her a certificate of citizenship.”

That same month, she married Mario De la Fuente Manriquez in Brawley, Calif. Then Mario Jr. was born in Nogales, Sonora in February the following year.

But prior to his birth, his mother “had been physically present in the United States for over 10 years, five of which were after her 16th birthday,” Parra said. “Thus, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 … Mario Jr. also is entitled birthright citizenship.”

Parra pointed out in his letters to the judge that like many old families along the border, the De la Fuentes have sought “to balance their business interests and concerns … in the Arizona-Sonora region.”

He also pointed to the twin-plant or maquiladora and allied industry as an example of how the “global economy” also attempts to balance international issues for economic purposes. “These executives keep the international and regional wheels of commerce moving,” Parra said.

De la Fuentes Mix’s border interests stretch back to his grandfather, Mario De la Fuente Flores, or Mike, as he was known by his friends in the United States. He was born in Del Rio, Texas.

De la Fuente Flores’ “entrepreneurial spirit” led him to Mexico City to work for Standard Oil. He later married Julieta Manriquez and settled in Ambos Nogales where he built the city’s bullring, formerly an institution among Mexico’s bull-fighting circuit.

His “American roots aided him in his business endeavors in Northern Sonora, Mexico where he pioneered cable television programming,” Parra noted.

In a criminal indictment filed quietly last November, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office charged the De la Fuentes, with an extensive list of crimes.

Phoenix police and the Attorney General’s office held a press conference announcing the charges in the widespread fraud case that entailed alleged money laundering through exotic cars, high-end Phoenix night clubs, and investors funneling millions of dollars into Arizona from Mexico.

“Every penny they invested in every business was honest and hard earned,” said De la Fuente Mix’s criminal lawyer Saji Vettiyil, who maintains his client is innocent and a victim of fraud perpetrated by another defendant in the case.