That is technically true, while missing a key fact. Birthright citizenship is the norm for countries in the Western Hemisphere. The vast majority of countries in the Americas have birthright citizenship. The USA is not some rare outlier here.
Most European countries actually do in a limited fashion. Countries that have signed the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness grant automatic citizenship at birth to people that would otherwise be born stateless.
More countries should adopt birthright citizenship. It has a lot of utility to it. It prevents the formation of a multigenerational undocumented underclass and greatly assists in the assimilation of immigrants into the broader culture. It’s simply a fact of life that some immigrants will enter a country illegally. And while it is bad enough that they may live the rest of their lives in hiding, it’s even worse when people are born into that condition. You can end up with generation after generation, people with little to no ties to their “homeland,” living as a permanent underclass because they lack citizenship.
It’s also a protection against some forms of tyranny and oppression. A favorite tool of tyrants is to strip citizenship from their victims. They’ll sometimes go back generations and declare decades-old immigration cases as fraudulent or invalid. Look at the Rohingya genocide, where the Myanmar government declared an entire minority group to be illegal immigrants. Having a hard rule that says, “if you were born here, you have citizenship,” prevents these tactics from being used on anyone except actual immigrants. Tyrants can still target immigrants, but their children are protected.
Jus soli is conditional, and doesn’t include hopping on a plane and just visiting a country, the birthing parents have to have established residence in the country. There’s also citizenship granted to children born to parents who are from whichever country it is.
None of these represent what we see in the US. No country in Europe grants automatic citizenship to children born of foreign parents.
Not to be rude, but where did you get that info? It isn’t correct. Doesn’t it sound a little too oversimplified for something like birthright citizenship laws in the US?
It’s pretty easy to understand. It depends on a few different things - you can be born to a US mother and not be a citizen, or to a US father and get citizenship through him. It depends on marriage status and there are different residency requirements for different situations. Those requirements are different depending on which parent is the US citizen too.
US citizenship comes from the mother, if born abroad. The baby would automatically be a US citizen, possibly have dual citizenship.
Most countries don’t have birthright citizenship.
Yes, I’m just saying that the baby of a US woman would not be a stateless person if born in a country that doesn’t have it.
That is technically true, while missing a key fact. Birthright citizenship is the norm for countries in the Western Hemisphere. The vast majority of countries in the Americas have birthright citizenship. The USA is not some rare outlier here.
I don’t think any european country has it…
Most European countries actually do in a limited fashion. Countries that have signed the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness grant automatic citizenship at birth to people that would otherwise be born stateless.
More countries should adopt birthright citizenship. It has a lot of utility to it. It prevents the formation of a multigenerational undocumented underclass and greatly assists in the assimilation of immigrants into the broader culture. It’s simply a fact of life that some immigrants will enter a country illegally. And while it is bad enough that they may live the rest of their lives in hiding, it’s even worse when people are born into that condition. You can end up with generation after generation, people with little to no ties to their “homeland,” living as a permanent underclass because they lack citizenship.
It’s also a protection against some forms of tyranny and oppression. A favorite tool of tyrants is to strip citizenship from their victims. They’ll sometimes go back generations and declare decades-old immigration cases as fraudulent or invalid. Look at the Rohingya genocide, where the Myanmar government declared an entire minority group to be illegal immigrants. Having a hard rule that says, “if you were born here, you have citizenship,” prevents these tactics from being used on anyone except actual immigrants. Tyrants can still target immigrants, but their children are protected.
Jus soli is conditional, and doesn’t include hopping on a plane and just visiting a country, the birthing parents have to have established residence in the country. There’s also citizenship granted to children born to parents who are from whichever country it is.
None of these represent what we see in the US. No country in Europe grants automatic citizenship to children born of foreign parents.
The mother or the father, and it depends on circumstances. The rules are more strict when the father is the US citizen.
If the father is a citizen, the mother is not, and the baby is born outside the US, citizenship does not transfer from father to child.
If the status of the parents is reversed, citizenship does transfer to the child.
Not to be rude, but where did you get that info? It isn’t correct. Doesn’t it sound a little too oversimplified for something like birthright citizenship laws in the US?
I looked into it when people were talking about Ted Cruz being born in Canada. His mother is a US citizen, so he’s actually a birthright citizen.
Here’s the law if you’re interested in learning about it: https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-h-chapter-3
It’s pretty easy to understand. It depends on a few different things - you can be born to a US mother and not be a citizen, or to a US father and get citizenship through him. It depends on marriage status and there are different residency requirements for different situations. Those requirements are different depending on which parent is the US citizen too.