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Children and Citizenship

By: Jonathan N. Portner
Sameer Sidh
March 12, 2009

In certain situations, children with one or more parents who are U.S. citizens may automatically qualify for citizenship themselves even if they were born outside of the country.  In other situations, a child with one or more U.S. citizen parents may be eligible to apply for a certificate of naturalization. Determining whether your child meets the requirements for automatic acquisition of citizenship is dependant on a number of factors that must be considered carefully.  In the case of a parent who has gained citizenship through naturalization, the date that this naturalization occurs also may affect a child’s eligibility for citizenship.

A child born outside of the U.S. automatically becomes a citizen if three conditions are met.  The first condition is that at least one of the child’s parents must be a U.S. citizen, whether its by birth or naturalization.  The second condition is that the child must be under the age of eighteen at the time when naturalization of the U.S. citizen parent occurs.  The final condition is that the child must hold a green card pursuant to a lawful entry into the U.S.  In practice, a child can often become a citizen of the U.S. immediately upon receiving a green card. 
If the U.S. citizen parent in question received naturalization prior to February 26, 2001, a different set of conditions govern the eligibility of a child for citizenship.  These conditions differ from the conditions listed above because both parents are required to have citizenship in order for their child to automatically qualify.  Specifically, one parent is required to have been a U.S. citizen continuously from the date of birth of the child, and the other parent is required to have naturalized prior to the eighteenth birthday of their child. 

Another important issue that should be addressed is the issue of step-children.  Unlike in other aspects of immigration law, step-children do not qualify as children for the purpose of deriving citizenship from a U.S. citizen parent.  To qualify as a child under this provision, the U.S. citizen step-parent must formally adopt their step-child.  The adoption of the child must occur before the child reaches the age of sixteen, and the child must have resided with the adopting parent for a period of at least two years.  Often times, a step-parent will believe that their child is eligible for citizenship under this provision, only to realize that an adoption is required to formalize the parent-child relationship. 

A child may be eligible to apply for naturalization through a U.S. citizen parent even where the child does not meet the conditions for automatic acquisition of citizenship discussed above.  Another set of conditions govern whether a child is eligible to apply for naturalization through their U.S. citizen parent.  There are a few distinctions that separate the conditions to apply for naturalization from automatic acquisition of citizenship.  First, the parent is not only required to be a citizen, but must have resided in the U.S. for a period of five years, with two of these years occurring after the age of fourteen.  Second, and perhaps most importantly, it is not required that the child be a green card holder to be eligible for citizenship.  Under this provision, the child can qualify for naturalization if they are here on a temporary visa and gained entry into the U.S. in a lawful manner. 

If you believe that your child may be eligible for automatic acquisition of citizenship, or eligible to apply for citizenship, contact an experienced immigration attorney.