If a baby is born to a non-American woman travelling in the U.S. on a legal tourist’s visa, does that baby automatically become a U.S. citizen? A friend of mine thinks so, but I thought this might have been true once, but now has been changed. Also, assuming the woman and her baby return to her home country, does the child’s U.S. citizenship stay with him/her throughout his/her life, or are there prerequisites to maintaining it?
Your friend is correct.
From the website of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services::
Since the OP says that the woman is on “a tourist visa”, it is unlikely that she is one of the exceptions (i.e. foreign diplomat or head of state).
Not only is the child automatically a US citizen, but if he/she fulfills the residency requirements later in life he/she (being a “natural-born citizen”) is eligible to run for US President!
Keep in mind, though, that tourist visas are typically granted for 90-day-or-less stays only. Which means that a woman legally in the US on a tourist visa would probably have been obviously pregnant upon entry. Immigration officials would be entitled to use their judgement and deny her entry for that reason.
Also, even if she did get away with it, she would still be subject to deportation once her visa expired. Having a child born in the States does not confer automatic right of residency.
Child is an American citizen and will be entitled to that status unless revoking citizenship in an accepted fashion. There are no prerequisites to maintaining citizenship. However, proof such as a birth certificate or passport may be required.
Are you sure about that, ruadh? Not to be argumentative, but about every third pregnant woman I knew while living in Taiwan was planning on delivering in LA, and there are even Taiwanese maternity hospitals there where they stay beforehand and for the requisite month-long lay in afterward. If immigration were regularly turning away the obviously pregnant, I doubt the industry would be doing as well as it apparently is.
Slightly OT question: The Sprout of Irae was born overseas, and we went to the American Institute to register her birth and get her a passport. Is she precluded from the presidency (not that she’d likely be interested. A step down, as it were, from her current position as Vertically Challenged Extremely Bossy Tiny Little Majesty)? I’m a US citizen, but her mother isn’t.
I hate to do this, so I’ll keep it short:
Good to see you, Greg!
Pop on over to MPSIMS and tell us what it’s like in Vietnam!
This is from what I’ve gathered here on the message board, I don’t have an authoritative cite, but here goes.
Sprout of Irae is a natural born US citizen, meaning she was a citizen at birth and never needed to become naturalized. The fact that she was born overseas shouldn’t enter into it because she was born of at least one US citizen who has lived in the US. (A little vague on that last part, it was mentioned in some of the other threads that if there was only one US citizen parent they needed to reside at some point in the US)
So, since the sprout was a citizen at birth, she is all set to become President. When Sen McCain was running for President this came up. He was born in the Panama Canal Zone but as he was a citizen by birth, he is eligable.
This subject has come up a fair amount recently on the SDMB (search for “natural-born citizen”). If you, irae, have lived in the US for five years or more, then the Sprout is eligible to take those megalomaniac qualities to the World’s Biggest Playpen.
From USConstitution.net:
Well, U.S. tourist visas are very strange. They are granted a certain term of validity, say one year. What that means, is the tourist can enter the U.S. anytime within that one year. How long he or she can actually stay is determined at the port of entry (e.g. the airport), and is independent of the original term of validity of the visa. Sometimes that’s 90 days, but often it is five to six months. It can even extend beyond the limit of the visa, since that limit only applies to entry. While in the U.S., the tourist can apply for an extension to the time of stay. He or she can legally remain in the U.S. until that application is accepted or rejected and since the application takes approximately six months to process, applying is essentially equivalent to being accepted. I think it would be easy to enter the U.S. before being obviously pregnant, and remain there until giving birth … assuming you could get the visa in the first place that is.
My youngest brother was born in Tokyo, Japan —of American parents.
We always assumed that, although an American citizen, he could never be President.—because the Constitution requires a native born citizen.
Were we in error? Not that my brother has plans to become President—but I would like to be the first to tell him he could be.
Yes, you were mistaken, disponibilite. The Constitutional requirement is “natural-born,” which just means a citizen at birth, as opposed to a naturalized one. A baby born to American parents, (and in certain cases, only one American parent) in another country is a natural-born citizen.
Many thanks for the dope! I hope that when Sprout of Irae becomes President for Life and Most Exalted Excellency she does us all proud.
I just hope that Sprout and my daughter Scarlett–the One and Only Princess, Queen of Everything–are never in the same room. Mayhem would probably be the best of what could happen.
Note that some countries–China, for instance–do not allow dual citizenship. To become a citizen of China you must renounce your Americanism…or vice versa (Scarlett’s case).
I’m not trying to be argumentative either, but that has “urban myth” written all over it.
Why would immigration turn away an “obviously pregnant” women entering the country legally? (Illegally is quite another matter)
The US doesn’t really care if a legal tourist or foreign national gives birth here or not. It’s not like we’re particularly stingy about handing out citizenships.
For that matter, even the illegally here pregnant women are still given medical care if they’re in labor, and their children are still citizens. Now, afterwards mama might be deported, but the kid remains a US citizen.
Broomstick, children born in the U.S. are given U.S. citizenship because it’s a constitutional requirement. This requirement arose out of the treatment of blacks in the slavery era and was never intended to facilitate tourists from all over the world who just wanted to have a U.S. citizen child - that was an unintended consequence which U.S. immigration officials would gladly eliminate if they could.
I’m having trouble finding a cite because Googling turns up pages and pages of irrelevant material, but here is something worth reading. I can’t speak for the accuracy of the source but it does seem to confirm the existence of Asian maternity clinics catering to these tourists, as irae stated. However, it also seems to confirm that U.S. immigration is not prepared to turn a blind eye to the practice.
My parents are both English. My father was doing an MBA in Boston they discovered that my mother was pregnant. They extended their stay for two months just so that I could get a US passport. I was on US soil for approximately two weeks and didn’t return for 21 years.
I have a US passport and am considered a US citizen. I also have to pay US taxes even though I don’t live there. It sucks.
quicken, if you’re making less than ~US$70,000 per year, and paying taxes in the country in which you reside, you still have to file a US income tax return but likely won’t owe any taxes.
Actually, it’s now something like $84,000 per year that’s not taxable, but that’s just for salary. Any other income abroad is, I believe, still taxable. Still, there are tax treaties between the U.S. and the U.K. that probably apply to all types of income. You’d think quicken would have easy access to an expert though. Don’t they teach tax accounting at business school?