Some children of US troops born overseas will no longer get automatic American citizenship

[Recursion]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Yonnie3 (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Task and Purpose

Some children born to U.S. service members and government employees overseas will no longer be automatically considered citizens of the United States, according to policy alert issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Wednesday.

Previously, all children born to U.S. citizen parents were considered to be "residing in the United States," and therefore would be automatically granted citizenship under Immigration and Nationality Act 320. Now, children born to U.S. service members and government employees who are not yet themselves U.S. citizens, while abroad, will not be considered as residing in the U.S., changing the way that they potentially receive citizenship. Children who are not U.S. citizens and are adopted by U.S. service members while living abroad will also no longer receive automatic citizenship by living with the U.S. citizen adopted parents.

The change was first reported by San Francisco Chronicle reporter Tal Kopan.

"The policy change explains that we will not consider children who live abroad with their parents to be residing in the United States even if their parents are U.S. government employees or U.S. service members stationed outside of the United States, and as a result, these children will no longer be considered to have acquired citizenship automatically," USCIS spokesperson Meredith Parker originally told Task & Purpose on Wednesday, when asked how the policy changes how the government views children of U.S. service members.

Read more: https://taskandpurpose.com/military-children-born-abroad-citizenship

[ArizonaLib]

1. Ridiculous

John McCain was born overseas. Not a John McCain fan in the least, but really?

[RockRaven]

2. Well, McCain's parents were citizens, but this is a half-step towards that, a dumb Trump-revenge...

Trump's a petty-ass motherfucker so if he were more prone to multi-step thinking I might think that was his motive...

but really he's just a racist P.O.S. who knows there are a lot of non-white non-citizens of child-having age in the military and he wants as few non-white Americans as possible.

[mr_lebowski]

3. Why are so many misreporting this change?

Consider the deception involved in one of the opening paragraphs:

"Previously, all children born to U.S. citizen parents were considered to be "residing in the United States," and therefore would be automatically granted citizenship under Immigration and Nationality Act 320. Now, children born to U.S. service members and government employees who are not yet themselves U.S. citizens, while abroad, will not be considered as residing in the U.S."

First part is about children born to US citizens, and the second is about children born to NON-US-CITIZENS.

There was never a rule that said that just because you were a government worker or service member serving overseas ... your children automatically became US citizens ... when you were not YOURSELF a US Citizen as a parent.

Now THIS part sounds like an actual, fucked-up change to existing policy ... "Children who are not U.S. citizens and are adopted by U.S. service members while living abroad will also no longer receive automatic citizenship by living with the U.S. citizen adopted parents."

I would bet that this is specifically meant to harm same-sex couples ... and as long as MF45 is POTUS, will be applied 'selectively' to gay folks and PoC when the chips are down.

But please, let's get this story right, people. I for one am getting sick of the 'Fake News' charges ... being shown to be TRUE

[Recursion]

4. There was such a rule, actually

There was never a rule that said that just because you were a government worker or service member serving overseas ... your children automatically became US citizens ... when you were not YOURSELF a US Citizen as a parent.

There was such a rule. Children of enlisted LPRs born abroad while their parents were deployed were deemed birthright citizens. This is particularly important because they generally do not gain citizenship of the country they are physically born in.

[mr_lebowski]

5. Okay, I'm listening ... first off, what's an LPR? nt

[Recursion]

6. Lawful Permanent Resident; "Green card" holder

Non-citizens can and do serve in the military and generally get a green card as part of the recruitment process. If they are stationed overseas and have a child, they have not had to apply for citizenship for that child before now.

[DFW]

7. I'm sure this will get worse

Maybe it's just a matter of time before any children of US citizens born abroad get a hundred roadblocks thrown in their faces before they can acquire citizenship. Why? No reason. Just to be mean. It's what Republicans do.

Back when my daughters were born here in Germany (my wife is German), I just called up the American Embassy in Bonn (when it was still the capital of West Germany), asked what I needed to do in order to get them U.S. citizenship. They told me what to bring, and come on down. I did, and, both times, within two hours of walking into the consular section, I walked out with their American birth certificates, US passports and Social Security numbers.

Fast forward to last year, when my younger daughter had her first child. The father was German. She applied for U.S. citizenship at the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt. They asked her to furnish ORIGINALS of her school transcripts while she was in school in the USA, and dozens of other nitpicking documents. My granddaughter now has US citizenship, but the process took over ten months. By the time my granddaughter is ready to have children, if she decides to have them in Germany, she'll probably have to walk on water for half an hour before they can get a US passport.

When my wife and I got married in the Washington area (Arlington, Virginia, to be precise), the US Embassy in Germany said she had to bring an "Ehefähigkeitszeugnis." One of those wonderful German words with a long meaning: "certification of being single." The Germans said they would issue such a document for her, but only in the town where she was born (a tiny farming town up north) and only with the original of MY birth certificate. I said no way was I going to turn over the original of my birth certificate to a bunch of German bureaucrats. I gave them a convincing copy (they probably didn't care). So we finally got this elaborate Ehefähigkeitszeugnis, and brought it to the Arlington (VA) County courthouse to apply for a marriage license. The marriage license applications only had space, where the info on the bride and groom went, for "city" and "state" of birth. Not "country." uh-oh. So when it came to "city," we filled in "Quakenbrück" and for state "Niedersachsen." Hey, it wasn't our fault there was no line for "country." Anyway, so when the official at the Arlington County courthouse read through the application, she stopped at Quakenbrück and Niedersachsen. We held our precious Ehefähigkeitszeugnis at the ready, hoping the lady could read German. She stopped and asked, "is that Germany?" I said , "yes." She answered, "I thought so," stamped and signed our marriage license, and poof that was it. No request for this stupid Ehefähigkeitszeugnis we had gone to such trouble to obtain--at the demand of the US Embassy!! I felt like Arlo Guthrie's Office Obie in "Alice's Restaurant" when he realized that the judge wasn't going to look at his carefully prepared 8" X 10" color glossy photographs of his garbage-dumping crime, since the judge was blind.

It seems to me that bureaucrats make people jump through hoops because they can, not because it serves some useful purpose.

[Recursion]

8. LOL

I hear you (also: I got married in Arlington too)

A friend of mine moved to Dubai for her husband's job (he's a chemical engineer; if I had known, 20 years ago, how much chemical engineers make...) and she had to go through the rigamarole of applying for a driver's license there. She had to get every American document you can think of, and then pay to have a certified translation of them into Arabic. When she had completed the giant sheaf of paperwork, the clerk said she also needed a kitab edmumanea.

A what?

It literally means "letter of non-objection". Her husband had to write a letter saying it was OK if she drives. Her husband was out in Djibouti or something doing chemical engineering work and wouldn't be back for two weeks, and driving in the interim was kind of the whole point of getting the license. She explained, and they said any male immediate family member would do. Her only other immediate family member was her five year old son.

"That will be fine"

So he had him scrawl "It's OK for mommy to drive the car" and sign it. They stamped the kitab edmumanea and she got her license.

[DFW]

9. Useless bureaucrats

The same the world over!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Hey, great things happen and embarassment avoided if you look at the LBN column on Home first.

[treestar]

11. Was this a problem?

Well I guess it was for Stephen Miller.

They will still be US citizens eventually. Why is the time lag so necessary? What was the problem about doing it earlier? What problem was that causing that needed to be solved by putting off their becoming US citizens until they are adults?

[Yonnie3]

12. Locking as a Duplicate

Duplicate of https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142361137

Please continue discussion there.