I refer you to Clay Blair’s excellent study of the Korean War, “The Forgotten War”, page 146. I quote LTC Mike Michaelis, who had just been given command of the US Army’s 27th Wolfhound Regiment, and was ordered to immediately deploy from Japan to Korea in July of 1950. “We’d just had our first child-a daughter. The only thing I had time to do was rush to the American Consulate with my wife and get our daughter certified so that SHE WOULDN’T BE A JAPANESE CITIZEN. I put twenty-five dollars, a razor, and tooth brush in my pocket and took off.” His daughter was born in the US Army hospital on Honshu.
Japan had regained it’s sovereignty at that time, and it’s citizenship laws were in effect. Japanese citizenship law held that ANYONE born on Japanese soil was a Japanese citizen. However, the US and Japan had concluded Status of Forces Agreements concerning the children born to US military personnel on Japanese soil. US military bases were LEASED from the Japanese government to the US for use as bases. They were still considered to be Japanese soil. If they were US soil, then the child of a pregnant Japanese worker delivering on a US base would be a 14th amendment citizen, just as if she had delivered in the US Embassy, which is US soil. With the SOFA agreement in place at that time, the Japanese citizenship of their daughter was waived, and the child would be exclusively a US citizen, (not natural born, but by US immigration and naturalization statutes extant at the time,(in the manner of Ted Cruz)
Both Michaelis AND his wife were natural born US citizens, serving their country overseas. Despite this, the location of their daughter’s birth makes her not even a 14th amendment citizen, but a statute citizen via the existing US Immigration and Naturalization laws.
I don’t like this reality, I don’t think that it is fair, but I did not write Article II. Children born overseas to parents serving overseas are NOT NBC’s. John McCain was a STATUTE CITIZEN, not a 14thh amendment one by virtue of the extant Immigration and Naturalization Act. (as was Ted Cruz)
But if people are willing to overlook the constitutional intent (not me) and make this ONE unprinciplled exception for sentimental reasons, then OK. Please stop ignoring all of the other anomalies.
The status of children born to parents out of the country was the citizenship of the parents for diplomatic representatives and military. This is not an exception but incorporates the beliefs of the time and the intent of the constitution.
She did not get Japanese citizenship; she got U.S. citizenship because I legally registered her birth and applied for a passport on her behalf at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. All she gets are a few extra merit points when she applies for or renews her working visa as a resident (but not national) of Japan.
OTOH, my granddaughter (from another daughter) gets automatic Japanese citizenship even though she was born in the United States because her father is a Japanese national, though lawfully a permanent resident of the United States.