It is significant to note that in a more recent case, in 2001, the Supreme Court indicated that under
current law and jurisprudence a child born to U.S. citizens while living or traveling abroad, and a
child born in the geographic United States, had the same legal status.
In
Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, 162
the Court explained that a woman who is a U.S. citizen living abroad and expecting a
child could re-enter the United States and have the child born “in” the United States, or could sta
abroad and not travel back to this country and have the child born abroad, and that the child in
either case would have the same status as far as U.S. citizenship: [T]he statute simply ensures equivalence between two expectant mothers who are citizens
abroad if one chooses to reenter for the child’
s birth and the other chooses not to return, or
does not have the means to do so.
163
Concerning the contention made in earlier cases
that everyone who is made a citizen only by
federal statute is a “naturalized” citizen (even those who are made citizens at birth by statute), it
may be noted that the common understanding and usage of the terms “naturalized” and
“naturalization,” as well as the precise legal meaning under current federal law, now indicate that
someone who is a citizen “at birth” is
not considered to have been “naturalized.”
164
Justice Breyer, for example, dissenting on other grounds in Miller v. Albright, explained that “this kind of
citizenship,” that is, under “statutes that confer citizenship ‘at birth,’” was not intended to
“involve[ ] ‘naturalization,’” citing current fe
deral law at 8 U.S.C. Section 1101(a)(23).
165
The Supreme Court recently recognized in
Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS,
that federal law now specifically
defines “naturalization” as the “conferring of nationality of a state upon a person
after birth,”16
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42097.pdf
Interesting — and consistent with my understanding.
Still a pointless argument, in my view, as the Titanic slowly sinks beneath the waves.
I don’t want to be negative but the case does not resemble the information you gave
In 1969, Tuan Ahn Nguyen was born in Saigon, Vietnam to Joseph Boulais and a Vietnamese citizen. At age six, Nguyen became a lawful permanent United States resident. At age 22, Nguyen pleaded guilty in a Texas state court to two counts of sexual assault on a child.
Subsequently, the Immigration and and Naturalization Service initiated deportation proceedings against Nguyen. After the Immigration Judge ordered Nguyen, Boulais obtained an order of parentage from a state court.
Dismissing Nguyen’s appeal, the Board of Immigration of Appeals rejected Nguyen’s citizenship claim because he had not complied with 8 USC section 1409(a)’s requirements for one born out of wedlock and abroad to a citizen father and a noncitizen mother.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals rejected Nguyen and Boulais argument that section 1409(a) violates equal protection by providing different rules for attainment of citizenship by children born abroad and out of wedlock depending upon whether the one parent with American citizenship is the mother or the father.
Furthermore the citation you attached is a lawyer’s position paper presented to Congress during one of the many attempts to sway the Congress into changing the Constitution, which they have no authority to do in any case and the position paper is an opinion with no force in law. The only reference to the case you quoted in that opinion paper follows:
Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, 533 U.S. 53, 64-65 (2001): Citizenship statutes requiring certain relationships of
children born abroad to U.S. citizen parent or parents are adopted “... to ensure that the child and the citizen parent have some demonstrated opportunity or potential to develop not just a relationship that is recognized, as a formal matter, by the law, but one that consists of the real, everyday ties that provide a connection between child and citizen parent and, in turn, the United States.”
See also Miller v. United States, 523 U.S. 420, 438-440 (1998) noting the interest of “fostering ties with this country ....”
As is patently obvious this advances the idea that a citizen created by naturalization statutes is the same as a NBC not one iota. Certainly this idea that it doesn’t matter where a woman has her child because its the same born inside or outside the US is not part of this case.