From the LA times April 6 2018
They are called American Samoans. But many residents of the U.S. territory — an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean — don’t feel American. That’s because people born in American Samoa are not U.S. citizens UNLESS ONE OF THEIR PARENTS IS A CITIZEN.
Alailima was born in American Samoa but is a U.S. citizen because his mother was a U.S. citizen. The 2010 U.S. census reported 109,637 American Samoans in the United States, or 184,440 when people with partial American Samoan ancestry were included.
American Samoans are not allowed to vote in federal, state or local elections and can’t run for elected office, serve on a jury or apply for certain government jobs that require the candidates to be U.S. citizens.
People of American Samoan heritage in the public eye include Tulsi Gabbard, who has represented Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District since 2013; Siala-Mou Siliga, also known as Mighty Mo — a heavyweight boxer, kickboxer and mixed martial arts expert; and actor Al Harrington, best known for his role as Det. Ben Kokua on the original “Hawaii Five-O” on CBS.
Initially, no U.S. territorial island residents received citizenship, Erman said. A series of Supreme Court opinions in the early 1900s, known as the “Insular Cases,” established different rules for “incorporated territories” such as Arizona and New Mexico, which were considered to be en route to becoming U.S. states, and for “unincorporated territories,” which were not. There are now five inhabited unincorporated territories — Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.
The unincorporated territories were never expected to have a shot at statehood or citizenship, until Congress decided to add them on a case-by-case basis over the years, Erman said.
Lawsuit
The State Department’s policy and practice of refusing to recognize birthright citizenship of people born in American Samoa “violates the Fourteenth Amendment,” according to the lawsuit. This article of the U.S. Constitution states that all people born in the U.S. “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” are citizens.
It looks to me we’re down to she wasn’t born in the US but a jurisdiction thereof.