[xzins]

Just today? I still see that citizenship at birth abroad to a US citizen is still NOT to be considered a naturalization.

[DiogenesLamp]

Just today? I still see that citizenship at birth abroad to a US citizen is still NOT to be considered a naturalization.

If it was created by the power of congress, it's naturalization.

[BuckeyeTexan]

I still see that citizenship at birth abroad to a US citizen is still NOT to be considered a naturalization.

Yes, that's what the Foreign Affaris manual states.

However, the 1971 SCOTUS decision in Rogers v. Bellei clearly states that citizenship granted at birth to those born abroad:

• is an indulgence and generosity by Congress
• is not an absolute
• can be denied or set aside
• can be contingent upon meeting requirements enacted by Congress
• that there is no constitutional right to such citizenship
• that Congress has the power to grant such citizenship through its constitutional power to enact an uniform rule of naturalization

Below are some excerpts from the decision.

Then follows a most significant sentence:

"But it [the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment] has not touched the acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents; and has left that subject to be regulated, as it had always been, by Congress, in the exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution to establish an uniform rule of naturalization."

Thus, at long last, there emerged an express constitutional definition of citizenship. But it was one restricted to the combination of three factors, each and all significant: birth in the United States, naturalization in the United States, and subjection to the jurisdiction of the United States. The definition obviously did not apply to any acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of an American parent. That type, and any other not covered by the Fourteenth Amendment, was necessarily left to proper congressional action.

...

Our National Legislature indulged the foreign-born child with presumptive citizenship, subject to subsequent satisfaction of a reasonable residence requirement, rather than to deny him citizenship outright, as concededly it had the power to do, and relegate the child, if he desired American citizenship, to the more arduous requirements of the usual naturalization process.

The decision in Rogers v. Bellei leaves me with the impression that there is legal precedent for declaring that citizenship granted at birth by Congress is an act of naturalization and therefore is not equivalent to natural-born citizen within the meaning of the constitution. I'll have to give it some serious thought and research other cases.

H/T to Red Steel for pointing me to Rogers v. Bellei.