Calling all FILIPINOS applying for Ivies!!!

tokenadult
Tue, 30 Nov 2004 22:31:27 +0000

Since the fourteenth amendment to the federal Constitution, written mostly to clarify the citizenship of former slaves, the rule in the United States has been that anyone born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a citizen by birth. The exception excludes children of diplomats. The exception also left ambiguous the status of American Indians (aboriginal inhabitants of North America), who were later declared citizens by act of Congress. You should have an automatic claim to citizenship as long as you can prove you were born in the United States of parents who didn’t have diplomatic status when you were there. But check to see what consequences that has for legal obligations and interaction with your current country of citizenship.

United States law discourages dual citizenship (for example, my wife, a first-generation immigrant, had to renounce her previous citizenship when she was naturalized as a United States citizen) but acknowledges that in particular cases a person might have claim to more than one country’s nationality. Sometimes this is worked out by treaties between the two countries concerned. A fairly common situation is that the United States and some other country agree that persons whose parents came from that country and born in United States territory choose their country of citizenship when they reach adult age. But there are other possibilities, and you should check how the laws of the Philippines and the laws of the United States would apply to your case.