53
votes
Will SCOTUS be forced to rule on birthright citizenship soon?
Probably not, because there is no legal case or controversy, and the law is clear enough. In US v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, SCOTUS held that
A child born in the United States, of parents of ...
- 210k
49
votes
Accepted
Will SCOTUS be forced to rule on birthright citizenship soon?
I think it's quite unlikely that this will lead to a Supreme Court decision on the question of birthright citizenship in general.
Consider what would have to happen to get to that point:
Someone ...
- 29k
43
votes
Accepted
Can you be made a citizen against your will and extradited?
You can be extradited from Country A to Country B even if you are a citizen of neither. What matters is whether B can convince A to do it, which is typically on the basis of a treaty between them as ...
- 454
41
votes
Not registering my US born child of 1 US parent as a US citizen
Can I choose to not register my child as a US citizen?
No. Your child will be a US citizen regardless of whether you register anything, and (unless you have spent less than 5 years in the US, or ...
- 35.1k
39
votes
Will SCOTUS be forced to rule on birthright citizenship soon?
No. The circumstances of Kamala Harris's birth fall squarely within the terms of United States v. Wong Kim Ark. As described in the other answer, the fact that Wong's parents had a permanent ...
- 35.1k
36
votes
Accepted
Does revocation of U.S. passport imply revocation of U.S. citizenship?
People often use "passport" as a metonym of "citizenship," but that should not lead one to mistake the two. Notably, many US citizens live their entire lives without having a ...
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35
votes
Do US born children whose parents are NOT citizens get automatic citizenship at birth?
Yes, the Fourteenth Amendment makes a person born on U.S. soil a U.S. citizen at the moment of birth.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, ...
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34
votes
Accepted
What's the most crucial issue when deciding Senator Cruz's citizenship?
At time of answering, the question is: What's the most crucial issue when deciding Senator Cruz's citizenship?
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, Section 1, states:
All persons born or ...
- 4,838
32
votes
US jus soli edge case
The Supreme Court rules in US v. Wong Kim Ark ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment, which states
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are ...
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27
votes
US jus soli edge case
A legal precedent that is most closely related to your question is Matter of Cantu, 17 I&N Dec. 190 (BIA 1978).
In 1906, the Rio Grande was artificially diverted north, which cut off a part of ...
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20
votes
Accepted
Is American citizenship automatic when born on US soil?
Does this mean that anyone who is born in the US is automatically a US citizen, whether they want it or not?
Yes (subject to a couple of exceptions, namely the children of diplomats with full ...
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20
votes
When does a person lose diplomatic status?
His statement suggests that he was at one time employed in a
diplomatic function (and that assumes that he had diplomatic "papers"
because of his employ), how does one lose that status, and is ...
- 195k
19
votes
Do US born children whose parents are NOT citizens get automatic citizenship at birth?
Not a loophole but the intent of the constitution.
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the ...
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17
votes
Can you be made a citizen against your will and extradited?
Made a citizen?
Probably not. Citizenship that is not acquired at birth normally requires some active step on the part of the person.
Not know you are a citizen?
Sure. Plenty of people, particularly ...
- 198k
16
votes
Can a citizen be denied access to their own country?
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in effect since 1976 and currently signed by about 179 countries, has in Article 12 Paragraph 4:
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the ...
- 29k
14
votes
Accepted
In 1970, how was Ted Cruz's citizenship determined?
This is answered here.
According to Wikipedia, birthright citizenship was extended to children with citizen mothers and noncitizen fathers in 1934; the text of that law seems to be found here.
The ...
- 4,838
13
votes
Accepted
What is a sure shot way of proving citizenship of India?
What are the documents or paperwork which can prove someone is an Indian citizen?
As is often the case, it depends on the context: who is seeking to prove the person's Indian citizenship? For what ...
- 35.1k
12
votes
Accepted
Can an extra-terrestrial be legally adopted?
There is longstanding and well-established legal non-uniformity in defining ‘person’, and in stating laws in terms of ‘persons’. The RICO statutes (18 USC 1961 (3)) states that a person ‘includes any ...
- 210k
12
votes
Is a state law protecting a non-citizen fetus unconstitutional?
It may help to start by clearing up some false premises in the question/comments:
The Fourteenth Amendment does not "expressly list protecting citizens as a core responsibility of Government.&...
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11
votes
Can you be made a citizen against your will and extradited?
Extradition
could the US make a person a US citizen specifically to be able to
charge them with a crime and possibly extradite them.
This part of the question is based upon a false premise.
...
- 195k
11
votes
Do US born children whose parents are NOT citizens get automatic citizenship at birth?
Yes, children born in the territory of the United States automatically become U.S. citizens by the 14th Amendment.
It is not a "loophole" in that, while the child is a U.S. citizen, their ...
- 211
10
votes
Accepted
Could a foreign power remove an Australian member of federal parliament by declaring them a citizen?
The law is not settled and will shortly be before the High Court (sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns) but theoretically: yes!
The provision on Disqualification is s44, specifically subsection (i)...
- 198k
10
votes
When does a person lose diplomatic status?
To supplement ohwilleke's answer (and drawing on a State dept. legal guidance document), there are three categories of "diplomat": diplomatic agents, members of the administrative and ...
- 210k
10
votes
Will SCOTUS be forced to rule on birthright citizenship soon?
While I'm not directly addressing whether Eastman's argument in Newsweek is sound, it's worth noting that Eastman wrote in Newsweek, back in 2016, that Ted Cruz was clearly a natural-born citizen, and ...
- 377
10
votes
US jus soli edge case
The birth would occur in a US state. As indicated in the answer by @user6726 the baby is a citizen at birth, unless the child of a diplomat. Although the citizenship exists in theory, exercising the ...
- 4,237
8
votes
What's the most crucial issue when deciding Senator Cruz's citizenship?
The issue is that the Constitution places an additional requirement on candidates for the Presidency: that they be not just a citizen, but a natural born citizen. The Constitution does not ...
- 4,254
8
votes
Accepted
Could one become stateless by first renouncing one's native citizenship, and then having one's naturalization revoked?
There are two approaches to determining citizenship: where you are born (jus soli – this holds in the US), and who you were born to (jus sanguinis – the case in India). There are mixes of these ...
- 210k
8
votes
Accepted
Are people born in a foreign embassy on US soil american citizens?
Immigration and naturalization is pretty far out of my comfort zone, but I'm confident that the answer is yes.
Although people often believe that a foreign embassy is considered the territory of that ...
- 57.2k
8
votes
Not registering my US born child of 1 US parent as a US citizen
You don't really register if you are born here. If you are born in the U.S. you are a citizen.
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