united-states citizenship diplomatic-immunity
Exactly which individuals born in the United States are not subject to its jurisdiction?
<p>According to <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?node=se8.1.101_13" rel="noreferrer">federal regulations</a>, individuals born to foreign diplomats who are on the Blue List are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and thus are not US citizens at birth.</p>

<p>But what would happen in the case of a child born in the US if</p>

<ol>
<li>One parent is a foreign diplomat, and the other is a US citizen?</li>
<li>One parent is a foreign diplomat, and the other is a lawful permanent resident?</li>
<li>One parent is a foreign diplomat, and the other has some non-diplomatic status such as F-1 student?</li>
</ol>

<p>(Aside: The Canadian Citizenship Act is much more explicit. A person born in Canada to a foreign diplomat parent will acquire Canadian citizenship at birth if the other parent is either a Canadian citizen or permanent resident [<a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-29/page-1.html#s-3ss-(2)ID0EESA" rel="noreferrer">link</a>].)</p>

<p>As long as they have diplomatic immunity, they don't have a residency status.  If either parent didn't have diplomatic immunity, then the child is a subject to the jurisdiction and they become a citizen at birth.</p>

<p>The short explanation with the reasoning can be found on the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-7-part-o-chapter-3" rel="noreferrer">uscis website</a>.</p>

<p>Namely</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Children born in the United States to accredited foreign diplomatic officers do not acquire citizenship under the 14th Amendment since they are not “born . . . subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” </p>
</blockquote>

<p>and</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>If one parent was an accredited diplomat, but the other was a U.S. citizen or non-citizen U.S. national, then the child was “born . . . subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” and is a citizen.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>7 FAM 1100, archived <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090817055724/http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a> from an old version of the Foreign Affairs Manual from 1995, goes into detail about issues regarding birthright citizenship for children of foreign diplomats. See 7 FAM 1116.2-(2,3,4), on pages 7-10 of the PDF. Unfortunately, later versions of the Foreign Affairs Manual no longer contain this information.</p>
<p>The part that is relevant for your questions is in 7 FAM 1116.2-2(d)(4):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>d.  As  a  rule,  children  born  in  the  United  States  to  the
following  employees  of  foreign  governments acquire U.S.
citizenship:</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>(4) Diplomatic  agents  who  have  the  children  in  question  with
U.S.  citizens  capable  of  transmitting  U.S.  citizenship  to
children  born  abroad.  Such  children  acquire  citizenship  under
pertinent  law  as  if  born  abroad  and  would  be  subject  to  any
citizenship  retention  requirements in effect at the time of birth;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This basically says that a child born in the US to one parent with full diplomatic immunity and one parent with US citizenship would basically be treated like a child born abroad, and would acquire US citizenship at birth if the US citizen parent meets the conditions for transmitting US citizenship to a child born abroad. So the answer to your question #1 is sometimes they have citizenship, and sometimes not. The answer to your questions #2 and #3 are implied to be no citizenship (since permanent residents and nonimmigrants cannot transmit US citizenship to a child born abroad).</p>
<p>I am not sure what the legal basis for this rule is. Why would a child born to a parent who can transmit citizenship be subject to US jurisdiction, while a child born to a parent who can't transmit citizenship be not subject to US jurisdiction? Or perhaps they are both not subject to US jurisdiction, and the citizenship derives from the section of law on citizenship for children born abroad to US citizen? But that section specifies &quot;a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions&quot;, so it doesn't seem to apply to children born in the US. Or perhaps they interpreted that Congress didn't intended for children born in the US to have any less preferential treatment for acquisition of citizenship than children born abroad in the same situation, so if a child born to a US citizen and foreign diplomat would acquire US citizenship when born abroad, the child should acquire US citizenship when born in the US too.</p>
<p>In any case, this information is only from a manual (and an outdated version of the manual at that), not from a law or even a regulation, so it is not very authoritative.</p>
<hr />
<p>By the way, there is another even more outdated reference on this. In the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120226191813/http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-45104.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">old INS interpretations</a> on nationality law, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120118060326/http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-45104/0-0-0-45113.html#0-0-0-23041" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Interpretation 301.1(b)</a>(2), regarding the law on citizenship for children born abroad prior to 1941, contains this interesting sentence:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Under the above rules, a child acquired citizenship at birth in Puerto
Rico, 26/ Guam, American Samoa, Swain's Island, Philippine Islands,
27/ Alaska (before March 30, 1867), Hawaii (before August 12, 1898),
Virgin Islands (before February 25, 1927), the Canal zone (before
August 4, 1937), in any foreign country, and even in the continental
United States, 28/ provided, in this last instance, that the child had
an alien parent who was a foreign diplomatic officer duly accredited
to the United States.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The last part seems to describe the same principle (albeit before 1941) that children born in the US to foreign diplomats with diplomatic immunity can acquire US citizenship through the rules for children born abroad, even though the law before 1941 (like the current law) does not explicitly provide for that. Footnote 28 says &quot;Application of Baron , CO 341-P (1961).&quot; I can't find information on this; perhaps someone else can.</p>

<p>There are some other groups. One is children of parents that are part of an invading force (I wonder when that happened for the last time, maybe Texas early 19th century?) In the UK NATO employees have a special status (not under immigration control) similar to embassy employees, someone might check if that is the same in the USA and if it extends to children.</p>
