# Status of children born in the US to non-US parents **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2004, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863 "2004-12-14T21:51:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jfortun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2acd7d/32.png) [@jfortun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jfortun)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/1 "2004-12-14T21:51:41Z")
If couple is in the US on a work or student visas and they have a child what is the citizenship status of the child? Does this effect the parents’ ability to immigrate to the US? Does the marital status of the parents matter? ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/2 "2004-12-14T22:15:26Z")
No cite at the moment, but my understanding is anyone born in the US has _jus solis_ citizenship, regardless of the citizenship of their parents. Apparently some people will cross the border illegally for the specific purpose of giving birth in the US to take advantage of this policy. ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/3 "2004-12-14T22:18:45Z")
Ah, I was close; it’s _jus soli_. Also, [here’s a cite](http://uscis.gov/graphics/services/natz/citizen.htm). ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/4 "2004-12-14T22:44:00Z")
As **Catalyst** ’s link demonstrates, the child will be a US citizen under the principles of _jus soli_, except in cases where the parents are foreign heeads of state or foreign diplomats. I have some Australian friends (here on F1 student visas) who have just had a baby here in the US. The child is a US citizen but, as far as i know, this fact does not make it any easier for the parents to become permanent residents or citizens of the United States. At least, this is what they told me after investigating the issue for themselves. As for being married, as far as i can tell the marital status of the parents makes no difference at all if the child is born within the United States and its outlying possessions. And if the child was born outside the US, then it appears to make no difference as long as at least one of the parents is a US citizen. [Link](http://uscis.gov/lpBin/lpext.dll/inserts/slb/slb-1/slb-21/slb-8530?f=templates&fn=document-frame.htm#slb-act309). If i’m wrong about any of this, i’m sure that someone like **Eva Luna** will be along to correct me shortly. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/5 "2004-12-14T23:41:53Z")
Does _ius soli_ apply if you’re in a foreign embassy? Technically, aren’t these foreign soil? Must suck (relatively) if your mother was ‘caught short’ and gave birth in one. The converse applies too, though - I wonder if embassies guard against it? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/6 "2004-12-14T23:47:56Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > The converse applies too, though - I wonder if embassies guard against it? Against what? Anybody who makes it into an embassy presumably had permission to be in the US, otherwise how else do they get there? 😕 (On preview, maybe you mean _other countries’ emabssies_ - in which case US citizenship rules are irrelevant.) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/7 "2004-12-14T23:49:42Z")
Ignore almost everything I just said there, it makes no sense :smack: :smack: :smack: I doubt that American embassies overseas qualify for _jus soli_. And anyway, there’s a lot of urban myth (with a whiff of racism) around the stories of women being desperate to give birth in the US. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/8 "2004-12-15T00:43:33Z")
A common misconception, but embassies are not “foreign soil”. Anyone born in an embassy to the US has been born in the US. The citizenship exception relates to the children of foreign heads of state and foreign diplomats, whethere they are born inside the embassy or outside it. If you are _not_ the child of a foreign head of state or foreign diplomat, and you are born in the United States, the fact that you may have been born in an embassy is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![St\_Ides](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@St\_Ides](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St_Ides)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/9 "2004-12-15T00:46:30Z")
One of my best friends was born in the US to Canadian parents. He received dual citizenship… That’s all I know ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/10 "2004-12-15T02:20:20Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > If i’m wrong about any of this, i’m sure that someone like **Eva Luna** will be along to correct me shortly. Nothing to correct, but one thing to clarify: the exception for children of foreign diplomats is, I believe, more correctly stated as anyone born in the U.S., but not subject to U.S. jurisdiction. I can’t for the life of me think of what categories of people that might include other than children of foreign diplomats, though. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/11 "2004-12-15T03:33:10Z")
How many other countries practice _jus soli_? I’ve always found it odd that our government gives citizenship to everyone born here regardless of their parent’s residency. Also, if someone is a citizen of the US under the _jus soli_ provision and doesn’t wish to be, how easy it to renounce citizenship? ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/12 "2004-12-15T03:39:30Z")
It’s a huge pain in the rear to renounce U.S. citizenship - to make a long story a bit shorter, there has been so much bizarre litigation of this issue that the U.S. Government is skeptical of one’s reasons for renouncing it, because down the road if you change your mind, they would have to prove that when you renouinced it, you had the intent to renounce it and knew the full ramifications of that fact, which is a difficult thing to prove. Some background: “Expatriation: Overview and Special Renunciation Problems” (warning: .pdf file, the first one on the righthand side of the linked page): [http://wwgw.com/content.asp?id=43](http://wwgw.com/content.asp?id=43) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/13 "2004-12-15T05:59:52Z")
> [@](#): > > The child is a US citizen but, as far as i know, this fact does not make it any easier for the parents to become permanent residents or citizens of the United States. Not directly but it could be a major factor later on. If this child later decides to use their US citizenship and becomes an American resident, the parents can then get preference for their own immigration applications as the parents of an American citizen. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/14 "2004-12-15T06:03:56Z")
Is there any time limit to invoke a _jus soli_ citizenship? Could some 80 year old Canadian who hasn’t set foot in the United States since 1924 suddenly say he was an American citizen because he was born one afternoon when his mother went into premature labor during a shopping trip to Buffalo? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/15 "2004-12-15T06:36:38Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > How many other countries practice _jus soli_? I’ve always found it odd that our government gives citizenship to everyone born here regardless of their parent’s residency. France used to, but this policy was discontinued a dozen years ago, when the governement of the time strongly stiffened the immigration laws (the pretext in this particular case was that supposedly pregnant women from north Africa would come to France to give birth to their child. Though I know it happened, I doubt huge numbers of them did so. And also that citizenship shouldn’t be an automatism. People should have to ask for it). So, now, besides being born in France, you must have lived here for a number of years (4 or 5, I believe, and I think it doesn’t matter whether your stay was legal or not), ask for citizenship (instead of being considered a french citizen automatically), and only upon reaching your majority (this part allows to deny the parents a right of residency they could have if their underaged child was a french citizen). ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/16 "2004-12-15T12:32:53Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Is there any time limit to invoke a _jus soli_ citizenship? Could some 80 year old Canadian who hasn’t set foot in the United States since 1924 suddenly say he was an American citizen because he was born one afternoon when his mother went into premature labor during a shopping trip to Buffalo? No time limit, and in fact there is some truly bizarre case law on this subject, particularly in the area of derivative citizenship. I’d post some samples, but we don’t have the same research software access at my new job as we did at my old job, so I’ll have to see what I can find elsewhere. P.S. By the same token, my father and aunt are derivative Canadian citizens who simply haven’t claimed it yet - my grandmother was born in Canada, but her U.S. immigration status is uncertain, as was the Canadian immigration status of her parents (who were born in now-Belarus and now-Ukraine, respectively, but in towns which at the time were in the Russian Empire and Poland, respectively). It would be a pain to prove the case, though, because my grandmother’s name on her birth certificate doesn’t even come close to matching either the version on her marriage certificate or the one she’s used my entire life (which is another long story). Dad so far doesn’t see the point in pursuing it, but if he did, then we as his children might also be eligible to claim Canadian citizenship. This might be particularly useful for my brother, who will be draft age in a couple of years (not to mention college age). Ain’t citizenship law fun? One thing’s for sure - it’s never boring. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/17 "2004-12-15T12:40:02Z")
Some examples of derivative U.S. citizenship and the powers of _jus soli:_ [http://www.shusterman.com/acquisit.html](http://www.shusterman.com/acquisit.html) [http://eogn.typepad.com/eastmans\_online\_genealogy/2004/10/proving\_us\_citi.html](http://eogn.typepad.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2004/10/proving_us_citi.html) [http://www.usabound.org/AmerasiansInfo.htm](http://www.usabound.org/AmerasiansInfo.htm) [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/women/html/wm\_006300\_citizenshipa.htm](http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/women/html/wm_006300_citizenshipa.htm) ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/18 "2004-12-15T12:55:19Z")
My parents were still German citizens when I was born (in New York). (They became US citizens as soon as they were eligible). But I understand that I might have had a claim to German citizenship as well. My guess would be that my “window” of dual-citizenship must have closed by now (I’m 45). ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/19 "2004-12-15T13:53:59Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > My parents were still German citizens when I was born (in New York). (They became US citizens as soon as they were eligible). > > But I understand that I might have had a claim to German citizenship as well. My guess would be that my “window” of dual-citizenship must have closed by now (I’m 45). Technically you got it when you were born and probably still have it. You might have lost it if you _actively_ acquired another citizenship (not just automatically getting one by birth) or volunteered for foreign military. If you actually want to use it, you can have it recognized at the German embassy. This reqires some paperwork to prove that you are really a descentant of someone who had a German citizenship on the day of your birth. Fortunately 45 is also the cut-off age for the draft, so you can safely do so. 😃 Btw. this is also true for all your children if you have any. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863/20 "2004-12-15T14:00:33Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Does _ius soli_ apply if you’re in a foreign embassy? Technically, aren’t these foreign soil? Must suck (relatively) if your mother was ‘caught short’ and gave birth in one. Not sure if I am misunderstanding you, but if your parents are US citizens, you are a US citizen, no matter where in the world you are born. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/status-of-children-born-in-the-us-to-non-us-parents/279863.md?page=2)