Not always.
A Mother (estonian living in Germany) meets and lives with US Serviceman while he was based in Germany post WW2 and has a baby by him. He gets sent home, says sayonara to the baby mama, and the Mother gives the child to an orphanage. The child is then adopted by an American couple. The child had to wait 5 years and go thru the naturalization process for citizenship. Nothing automatic there.
“Nothing automatic there.”
But that’s what makes this ruling so atypical. The only tracking device that can be used to define parentage is DNA profiles. If the child is a citizen based upon DNA as the mother was not a citizen, then anyone with any American citizen’s DNA is officially a citizen at birth as per the judges decision if there is any comparable DNA in the child. And in this case, the mother’s DNA means nothing unless her’s holds strands of a provable American citizen. And if she lived in the US or its territories for more than 4 years after age 14, the child would be considered a citizen under another part of the 14th Amendment even if the father was not.
Designation of citizenship no longer is cut and dry. This opens up a number of cans of worms. Slippery slope.
rwood