For all its troublesome loopholes, birthright citizenship has the advantage of being simple. Show your birth certificate, end of story. Now … not so simple, comrade. Maybe you are, maybe you’re not. We’ll investigate and get back to you.
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
Well, presumably I could look up their birth certificates. But if they were (legal) immigrants … not so easy. I guess I’d have to hunt down their naturalization papers, if that’s even possible.
Actually even if they were born here all it means is that you then need go up one more level where you would face the same issue. The practical effect would be, IMO, that way over half the people really couldn't prove they were citizens.
Germany did something hauntingly similar to their citizens in the lead up to WWII. They had to prove their ancestral lineage was "Aryan" & did not contain Jewish blood in order to be considered a German citizen.
As someone who has been asked multiple times in her life, “No, where are you *really* from,” this is something I’ve reflected on a lot in the last several months. And I don’t have an answer. And that is worriesome.
Pull up my family tree? But I’ve checked loads of Ellis island records, and have never found a certain g-g-grandmother of mine who moved to NYC from Poland. Is that too far back, or are we going full mischlinge here?
Her second husband’s naturalization record says she entered the United States in April 1904 at New York City. Was there another port in NYC that immigrants would have come through? (Seriously asking; it’s been driving me lowkey batty.)
Which puts a great deal of power in the hands of those who choose whether or not to open an investigation.
Is it worth drawing their attention (for those given a choice), if it means you might have to assemble generations worth of documentation on pain of being stripped of citizenship?
Comments
Is it worth drawing their attention (for those given a choice), if it means you might have to assemble generations worth of documentation on pain of being stripped of citizenship?