He was born in The Philippines, to American parents who were there on… whatever visa The Philippines issues to missionaries.
Does this make him a US Citizen under the jus sanguinis principle (or any other legal principle)? Would he be eligible to be POTUS (strictly hypothetically; I’m not suggesting the he’d make a good POTUS)?
Since no serious objections were sustained to Senator McCain running as President of the U.S., I think the same would apply to Mr Tebow.
Of course he is, and he could.
He is a natural-born citizen under jus sanguinis, and would be eligible for the presidency. As others mentioned, check out the recent case of Sen. McCain.
You might be confusing “natural-born citizen,” which is the qualification for the presidency, with the concept of jus soli, which is the principle that one is a citizen of somewhere if they are born there. The US has that principle (many other countries do not) but it is not the only way to be a natural-born citizen.
I’m not saying Tebow could or couldn’t, but McCain was born in the Canal Zone, which was U.S. soil at that point. Not so the Philippines (at least when Tebow was born).
No, the Canal Zone was not part of the U.S.: it was land leased to the United States.
Doesn’t matter, the children of US citizens are US citizens*.
*Some restrictions may apply, but if both his parents were born US citizens, there’s no question.
That’s what I was thinking, it’d be a Hell of a thing to have your kid turn out to be a Filipino or Bahamian or Kiwi just because your water broke at the wrong time on vacation.
I had been under the impression that the Canal Zone was not actually American territory (just American-administered), but upon further research it appears it was a genuine unorganized federal territory until 1977.
Yes. Yes. (And Fuck no!)
But it was unincorporated the whole time, so people born there only had US citizenship according to whatever terms Congress chose (unincorporated territories aren’t “in the United States” according to the Supreme Court, so the 14th Amendment doesn’t matter). As it happens, Congress didn’t act at all until 1937, when it bestowed citizenship on certain people born there retroactively back to 1904.
In fact, John McCain would definitely have been a citizen at birth had he been born in totally foreign territory. The Naturalization Act of 1795 confers citizenship on babies born to two citizens “outside of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States.” The Canal Zone was outside of the limits of the United States, but under its jurisdiction. John McCain was the first and probably the last person for whom that would matter at all, so it never has been and never will be completely resolved. That would require an exact definition of “natural born citizen.”
And Nicole Kidman is a US citizen because she was born in Hawaii to Australian parents here on educational visas.
This isn’t really a problem for countries that allow dual citizenship. In this hypothetical, the Philippines can issue a citizenship to your child, and the USA could do it as well. Heck, if they wanted to (not that I’ve ever heard of it done and it would be kind of weird), any other nation could declare you to be a citizen of their country, but it wouldn’t remove your American one.
My friend was born in the USA while her parents were there for a few months (contractor/pipeline work for her father) and she is an American citizen. Her parents are Canadians, and she’s lived in Canada most of her life, so she is also a Canadian citizen. The USA used to insist that people renounce their other citizenships, but - at least for Canadians - they don’t really care/do anything about it.
Those people had to be children of U.S. citizens. Mere birth in the Canal Zone did not confer U.S. citizenship at any point in its history. Under the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty, the U.S. had the right to act “as if it were sovereign,” but was not technically sovereign. The land itself still was technically part of Panama. Panama recognizes anyone born in the former Canal Zone as a Panamanian citizen.
Agreed. My ex-wife was a dual US-Canadian. Originally from the US, she became a naturalized Canadian during our marriage. No big deal; she would enter the US on her American passport, and come home on her Canadian one.
A funny story I recall her relating to me after a business trip to the US: she had forgotten her American passport, but had her US birth certificate and Canadian passport and citizenship card. Apparently, as I recall her telling the story, the US immigration officer took the opportunity to lecture her about Being a Proud American, and Being a Citizen Of The Best Country in the World, and Remembering the Alamo and the Maine, and How Our Forces Stand for Freedom and Liberty Around the World (Including Canada), and how Bald Eagles Cry When Alighting On Flagpoles Flying The Stars and Stripes. She was, of course, exaggerating. Anyway, dispensing with her exaggeration (which she reported with laughter), the upshot is that he took a lot of unnecessary time telling her how lucky she was to be American and how she never should have become anything else. They let her into the US anyway, as she was undoubtedly a native-born American citizen.
But even though she had become a Canadian, they never said anything about renouncing her US citizenship.
Depending on the laws of the country your water breaks in your child can very well be a dual citizen, if one or both parents hold multiple citizenships from countries that have the principle of jus sanguinis you can start having triple, quad, quintuple citizenships.
I know of several people that basically collect citizenships for their child(technically their child is already a citizen but I mean they go and report it to the relevant embassy for a form).
To address the OP here are the rules for the USA on whether a child born abroad to one or both parents was a citizen at birth:
http://www.travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_5199.html
It is my understanding that if you are a citizen by birth, either through being born inside a country or through a citizen parent, you are a natural born citizen. Basically it means you did not naturalize or immigrate, you were a citizen at birth.
At the moment, he is not eligible to be POTUS due to his age. If he makes it to 35, then he’d be eligible.
Do they? I’d thought it had been changed, because of “anchor babies”.
I was born in Israel three years after my parents immigrated from the the States. I am a U.S. citizen from birth, because they are - and I’m an Israeli citizen for the same reason.
Now, to make sure my *son *was an American citizen, I had to prove that I had lived a total of at least 5 years in the U.S., including 2 years over the age of 18. Which I had.