Under current law, there are multiple ways to acquire citizenship. With a few trivial (for now) exceptions, everyone born in the US acquires their citizenship automatically at birth. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution as construed by SCOTUS guarantees that.
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People born outside of the US can either acquire their citizenship at birth or later, in either case by operation of a federal law--the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA).
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The INA provides that babies born abroad to two US citizen parents who are married at conception or birth (or within 300 days of the marriage ending by death or divorce) and at least one of whom has had a residence in the US (*takes a breath*) acquire their citizenship at birth.
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Other babies born abroad do not generally acquire their citizenship at birth. They either acquire it later automatically or they have to go through a naturalization process. The policy change affects kids in this situation, shifting many more of them to the naturalization route.
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That long litany of requirements for automatic citizenship for a kid born to two US citizen parents in wedlock (spelled out in section 301(c) of the INA) hasn't mattered too much to date for military members and government employees serving abroad.
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Military members and government employees, even though they were at their posts overseas, were deemed to be residing in the US for immigration purposes. That meant their kids could acquire their citizenship automatically through the looser requirements of Section 320.pic.twitter.com/Ft7fcpMytc
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In late October of this year, the notice says, that deemed residency is ending, which--as I understand it--is generally going to put military and govt employees abroad in the position of proving they check all the boxes of 301(c) or applying for their children's naturalization.
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There are other procedures for acquiring citizenship for out of wedlock births and people with non-US residency, I hasten to add. It's complicated and typically requires pledges of financial support and proofs of residency. You can read about them here.https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-parents …
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Please don't take this thread as a complete digest of immigration law, but a partial illustration that this looks to me like it will be a huge hassle to a lot of people.
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Replying to @nycsouthpaw
Under this policy, I am not a US citizen (born in Japan to parents in service)...this is not retroactive, right?
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I don't think they could make it retroactive even if they wanted. But IANAL, so this doesn't mean much. My understanding is that the change only would affect a future you if your parents didn't reside in the US for 5 years before your birth.
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Replying to @AndresFreundPol @nycsouthpaw
Thanks, hands slightly less sweaty.
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