The road to San Miguel weaves through stands of mesquite trees and prickly pear cactus, wandering for flint-dry miles through southern Arizona to the Mexican border. As border ports go, San Miguel itself is a humble affair: some rusty wire, oblong posts, and deep ruts.

For Tohono O'odham Indians such as Ana Antone, however, this route across their reservation is a crucial link to relatives in Mexico, allowing them to travel back and forth for religious ceremonies or seasonal harvests of saguaro fruit. Like many O'odham, Ms. Antone worries with each journey through San Miguel that she'll be stopped by authorities asking for papers she doesn't have.

Born in Mexico, Antone is among 8,400 tribal members who grew up in remote, rustic villages along this international frontier without birth certificates or other documents. After serving with the US Marines and attending college, she returned to the reservation north of the border. Now she works as a counselor here in Sells, a dusty desert town that's home to the tribal government. But she still doesn't have US citizenship.

Antone lives in a world that includes three nationalities: Mexican, American, and Tohono O'odham. "It gets confusing" she says. "But as O'odham, we're all one people, and we have one land."

Now, freshmen Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) of Arizona wants to turn that concept into law. In a controversial move, he has introduced legislation that would grant US citizenship to all enrolled members of the tribe - including those living in Mexico.

Supporters see the measure as a way to correct an "oversight" that was made more than 150 years ago. But critics see it as giving the O'odham a special privilege - and setting a dangerous precedent for immigration laws.

The dilemma dates back to 1854, when the O'odham's ancestral homeland was halved by the Gadsden Purchase. Today, some 1,000 tribal members remain scattered among small villages in northern Mexico, while in the United States their reservation spans 4,500 square miles, including 60 miles of the US- Mexico border.

Henry Ramon, vice chairman of the 25,000-member Tohono O'odham Nation, hopes Representative Grijalva's bill will correct a lingering injustice. "With our way of life here on the reservation, we don't always have documents," says Mr. Ramon. "We were born in our homes, and don't have [birth certificates]."

Recent illegal immigration and security crackdowns on the border have increased the need for such documents: Not long ago, a group of O'odham traveling north from their Mexican homes for medical help on the reservation - services accorded them as registered tribal members - were summarily stopped at the border and detained for hours. Federal officials turned some back.

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