Some children born to US citizens stationed abroad as government employees or members of the military would no longer qualify for automatic US citizenship under a policy change unveiled by the administration of US President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
Effective Oct. 29, certain parents serving overseas in the US armed forces or other agencies of the federal government must go through a formal application process seeking US citizenship on their children’s behalf by their 18th birthday, the policy states.
However, a government fact sheet listed several caveats appearing to exempt many such children from the new requirement, including those with at least one US citizen parent who lived in the US before the child’s birth.
Currently, children born to US citizens stationed by their government in a foreign country are legally considered to be “residing in the United States,” thus allowing their parents to simply obtain a certificate showing their children acquired citizenship automatically.
However, in an 11-page “policy alert,” US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said that it found the prevailing rules contradictory and at odds with other parts of federal immigration law and US Department of State procedures.
Beyond that, the rationale for the policy revision remained unclear.
“It’s a solution in search of a problem,” said Tennessee-based attorney Martin Lester, who chairs the military assistance program for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The scope of the change seemed fairly limited, he added.
“I’m sure, to be fair, it’s a relatively small number of people,” Lester said.
USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli said on Twitter that the new rule “does NOT impact birthright citizenship” — the doctrine — criticized by Trump — by which anyone born in the US or its possessions automatically acquires US citizenship.
However, the change could conceivably give Trump room to argue that his administration curtailed birthright benefits that a citizen with little or no actual US residency can automatically confer to their foreign-born offspring.
“It only affects children who were born outside the US and were not US citizens,” Cuccinelli said.
The larger US expatriate community is likewise unaffected. Children born overseas to nonmilitary, non-government employee parents still automatically gain US citizenship so long as at least one parent is a US citizen who has previously lived in the US for five years or more.
The new policy, which is not retroactive, sparked immediate consternation on the part of some organizations representing members of the armed forces.
“Military members already have enough to deal with, and the last thing that they should have to do when stationed overseas is go through hoops to ensure their children are US citizens,” said Andy Blevins, executive director of the Modern Military Association of America.
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