What Is Birthright Citizenship?
Birthright citizenship is when a child acquires citizenship by being born in the fifty states, as well as overseas territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Under a related doctrine, jus sanguinis (right of blood), a child born out of the U.S., even when one of the parents is not an American citizen, can still become a citizen if the other parent is American, and has been ” physically present” in the U.S. for five years before the child’s birth. Children born overseas, out of wedlock, to an American mother, obtain citizenship if the mother has lived in the U.S. for at least one continuous year before the child’s birth. If the father is the U.S. citizen in the out of wedlock case, he must satisfy the same residency requirements as does the American mother, but he must also establish paternity by clear and convincing evidence. From Wikipedia: ” Because of this rule, unusual cases have arisen whereby children have been fathered by America
