united-states international us-constitution citizenship
U.S. Citizenship by Birth
<p>My spouse was born in 1979 to a legal foreign student couple , they left the U.S when she was a few month old and never applied for her U.S citizenship. </p>

<p>now she wants to obtain her U.S citizenship and passport. the only thing she has is a valid birth certificate. </p>

<p>is it possible for her to get her U.S. passport just by going to united state embassy? or she need to go after a court challenge?</p>

<p>As Martin Bonner suggested, you or she need to check the local embassy. The U.S. Department of State has <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/applying-for-a-u-s--passport-from-outside-the-united-states.html" rel="nofollow">a page</a> with some FAQs on applying for a passport from outside the United States.</p>

<p>I've cobbled together some information from other pages of the U.S. Department of State website. </p>

<p>A birth certificate is considered a primary identification <strong>IF</strong> it's issued by a city, county, or state. If it was issued by the hospital where she was born, it's a secondary identification and she would need further evidence. </p>

<p>She should double-check on whether she was issued a social security number. Sometimes you can apply while you're still in the hospital, but that might not have been true when she was born.</p>

<p>If she doesn't have a social security number, she will have to write a signed  affidavit that states that she doesn't have one. Here's the wording from <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/FAQs.html#SocialSecurity" rel="nofollow">this FAQ</a>:</p>

<p>“I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the following is true and correct:  I have never been issued a Social Security number by the Social Security Administration.”</p>

<p>She would also need a passport photo which has pretty stringent requirements. There's information on the same FAQ page, but further down (new requirement as of 1 November 2016--no glasses allowed). </p>
