@TatinG – this is not about naturalization or denaturalization. This is about people whose birth certificates certify that they are natural born citizens. Who are now being asked to “prove it” with no evidence to prove that they aren’t.
Your passport is all you need.
My kid was born abroad, so that city and country are on her US passport. Just waiting for the day that someone questions her. 
Yes we have that whole stack of passports going back to when she was a baby, and the original consular certificate citizen birth abroad, but sheesh. I wonder if I should pony up for a couple of duplicates and stash them in my sibs’ safe deposit boxes in other parts of the country.
My child has been stopped twice in immigration checks in California. They ask her if she’s a citizen, she says yes, and that’s it. Her passport also says she was born abroad, and it has never been an issue. She’s never had an issue with a passport. I have never used her Certificate of Citizenship since getting her first passport when she was 3.
How much would duplicates of her consular birth certificate cost? A duplicate of a Certificate of Citizenship is about $600.
I just converted my DL to the new travel-ID version. In addition to a passport I believe I needed 2-3 other pieces of doc. IIRC there were two groups of docs, and I had to bring one from each group. I think I brought a credit card statement and a utility bill (both showing my name and address) along with the passport and my current state driver’s license.
Your local state DMV website should have detailed documentation since the requirements are set at the federal level.
Back on topic, I ran into a very mild version of the “I don’t trust your official documentation” attitude decades ago when I got my first US passport. I was naturalized since I was a minor when my parents got their citizenship, so I had an official US “certificate of naturalization” with my photo. Took that to get a passport one day and the agent gave me some attitude, saying I didn’t look like the photo and how did they know it was me, never mind that I had a driver’s license and all the other required doc with me. Ever since then I’ve been careful to never let my passport expire.
You can use your expired passport to get a new one for 10 years after expiration. I’ve done it once and my kids twice.
I know people who have had trouble, but I never have. I ask them what documents they want and provide them. I used their passports to register them for school, sports teams, etc., because I didn’t want to provide the birth certificates.
Jus soli citizenship (by birth within the country) is used in most countries in the Americas (including the US, Canada, and Mexico), but is not that common elsewhere.
Jus sanguinis citizenship (by descent or bloodline) has its own issues.
Yes and whether or not you agree with it that is not the current situation in the US.
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My child has been stopped twice in immigration checks in California. They ask her if she’s a citizen, she says yes, and that’s it. Her passport also says she was born abroad, and it has never been an issue. She’s never had an issue with a passport. I have never used her Certificate of Citizenship since getting her first passport when she was 3.
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I honestly am glad that it is easy for your child. What I am not glad is that this does not extend to all people and what they look like will play into it.
Garland. I was responding to 13, 14 and 15.
Denials in the “midwife cases” are at a 6 year low based on records from the State Department.
Re: #29
That article shows a chart showing that the percentage denied is lower, but does not show absolute numbers of cases each year.
More on the subject:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/08/30/revoking-passports-us-citizens/
The Post has no numbers of passport application denials. Yet they claim they are ‘surging’. The State Department shows the percentage of denials is actually down from past years. Creative use of numbers but it seems that before the Post wrote the article they should have marshaled more facts.
This entire discussion is exactly why I renewed my passport – and all the passports of my family members – on November 9, 2016.
Percentage down does not say anything about numbers affected. Seems that if the numbers affected were down, the State Department would release the numbers, rather than the percentages.
It would be like comparing district attorneys by conviction rates, even though the difference may be in whether one prosecutes only the easiest convictions while another prosecutes aggressively, even in dubious cases.
Anyway, the numbers are less relevant for individuals who now have to be concerned whether their official documents will be untrusted by association with a provider who may have committed fraud in other cases (but not one’s own), and that they will be seen as guilty until proven innocent.
Just FYI - Stephen Miller’s great grandfather was denied citizenship for being “ignorant” because he failed his citzenship test, and Trump’s grandfather was exiled from the Kingdom of Bavaria for not doing required military service. There is no purity test that we all would pass!
Getting citizenship after committing a crime has always been difficult if not impossible. It has been grounds for deportation.
Right, but some of these are children of US citizens who were soldiers in Vietnam. Their citizenship should not be in question, crime or no crime.
Re: children of US service men and Vietnamese mothers during Vietnam conflict
US nationality law at the time automatically passed US citizenship by descent only through the mother if the parents were not married.
And how would a person prove that descent? What sort of paperwork does Stephen Miller imagine these people have? What about children adopted from orphanages overseas, perhaps abandoned or lacking documents? Are we going to deport them eventually?