PASTOR FINALLY GETS CITIZENSHIP

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- A Canadian-born pastor whose four-year quest for
U.S. citizenship was stymied by a teen-age marijuana conviction has finally
been granted his wish.

``I've always felt like an American and now I'm an American -- it feels
like a ton lifted off of you,'' Steven Mullenix said Wednesday from Canada,
where he reluctantly returned in August with his wife and two young
children. ``I can't wait to get back to the United States.''

Mullenix, 37, was interviewed by immigration agents last week and learned
Tuesday that he had been granted citizenship.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service ``obtained the necessary
evidence and the testimony required for him to satisfy the burden of
proof,'' a district official said, but declined to discuss the specific
reasons for the agency's change of heart.

Mullenix was suspended for a year from the Assemblies of God for writing an
abusive letter to immigration officials last summer. Losing his ministry in
Newark, a village near Rochester, forced him to move back to Ontario, where
he works in an auto plant.

The church will allow Mullenix to apply again for his ministerial
credentials on Jan. 1. Mullenix plans to complete a theology degree, become
a chaplain and return to the United States next year to minister at a prison.

The son of an American who moved to Canada at age 14, Mullenix can trace
his American lineage to 1671. A distant grandfather fought in the
Revolutionary War, and his grandmother still owns a 70-acre farm in
Arcanum, Ohio, where their forebears settled 200 years ago.

Mullenix was caught with more than an ounce of marijuana at age 18 in 1981
and spent three months in a Canadian jail. He kicked drugs at 22, turned
his life around and had his conviction vacated in 1992.

Under U.S. immigration laws crafted to exclude Nazi war criminals,
terrorists and other undesirable people, Mullenix was deemed ``excludable''
for life. Anyone arrested with more than 1 ounce of banned drugs is viewed
as a potential dealer.

Mullenix realized his predicament after moving to New York on a five-year,
religious-worker visa in 1995. He sued in federal court to try to force a
change in the immigration law but now that he's won citizenship, he said
his lawsuit becomes moot.

Mullenix said his family and his belief in God sustained him through ``some
really low times.''

``You always feel light at the end of the tunnel when you're a person of
faith,'' he said.