If you are a U.S. citizen and your child was born outside the U.S. your child may become a U.S. citizen. Simply being born to a U.S. citizen parent, however, is not enough for the child to obtain U.S. citizenship. Additional conditions must be met. The evaluation will rely on several things, such as where the parents lived at the time of birth, whether the child was born in or out of wedlock, and whether the U.S. citizen is the child's father or mother.
USCIS published new policy guidance on residence versus physical presence on 28 August 2019, and it came into effect on 29 October 2019. The term residence should not be confused with a physical presence (the actual time a person is in the United States) irrespective of whether he or she has a residence in the United States, as per the new manual. Although certain provisions relating to naturalization (the process by which a person born outside the United States becomes a U.S. citizen, usually after first holding a green card obtained through routes such as the EB-5 investor visa or the EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 employment-based categories) and citizenship require specific periods of physical presence, residence, or both, no specific period of residence is required when both parents are U.S. citizens, provided at least one of them had a residence in the United States before the child’s birth.
Factors that do not by themselves count as residence in the United States
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Being born in the United States without living there
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Visiting the United States as a tourist or temporary visitor, or working in the U.S. daily while living in Mexico or Canada
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Owning or renting property in the United States
USCIS also gave an update on children of U.S. government employees and service members stationed abroad.
Children living overseas with their U.S. citizen parents who are U.S. government employees or members of the U.S. military stationed abroad were not considered to be residing in the U.S. for citizenship purposes under this policy. Likewise, leave taken in the U.S. while stationed abroad did not count as residence in the United States, even if the person stayed in a property he or she owned. U.S. citizen parents living outside the U.S. with children who are not U.S. citizens therefore had to apply for U.S. citizenship on behalf of their children and finish the process before the child’s 18th birthday.
The Citizenship for Children of Military Members and Civil Servants Act, signed into law on 26 March 2020, reversed this for children of U.S. government employees and service members stationed abroad, who are again treated as residing in the United States for this purpose.
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