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Hi.

Hi @phoog, I figured I should stop spamming the comments. Sorry to drag you in here, feel very free to ignore me or just answer when/if you have the time.

Are you sure about that example you mentioned? A child who is eligible for US citizenship will automatically be considered a citizen?

That seems very strange to me.

So if the child were to grow up without ever having taken any steps to acquire citizenship, the IRS could then hound them for taxes?

@terdon yes. See Boris Johnson (though I suppose he had a US passport issued). The law says that children who meet certain conditions are citizens; there is nothing about applying or fulfilling any administrative requirements.

@phoog Boris isn't really a good example since it's safe to assume the paperwork was done. I just don't understand how you can be a citizen of a state if that state doesn't know you exist. You can have the right of citizenship, but how can you be one if you're not on their ledgers?

@terdon see 8 USC 1401. A person who is a citizen under 8 USC 1401(a) does not need to apply for citizenship, and neither does a person who is a citizen under 1401(c).

law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1401

@terdon "how can you be one if you're not on the ledgers" because citizenship isn't dependent on administrative formalities.

@phoog Thanks! That's precisely what I was looking for. Now to try and make sense of it...

Of course, most benefits of citizenship require administrative formalities, so the practical implications of this can be hard to find.

But I think the visa application is a good example.

Indeed.

It just seems very strange to me that someone who doesn't even officially exist can be a citizen.

But I can't find any legal basis for my take in what you've sent me so it does indeed look like you're right. Thanks!

@terdon this has come up here before, and of course you can get into all sorts of philosophical arguments about specific sets of facts and whether someone who is a citizen under those fact patterns but has never proved the facts to the executive or judicial branch is in fact a citizen.

@phoog If a citizen stubs a toe in the forest...

yes, I remember a similar post about Turkish citizenship. It just seems weird to me, and doubly so since I am a US citizen born and raised overseas.

There are also some cases (UK law comes to mind) where certain classes of people do have an automatic right to citizenship on application (others acquire citizenship automatically). I am not sure whether such cases exist in US law.

@terdon lol

@terdon I am a US-born citizen. I found out in my late 20s that I was also a Dutch citizen from birth because my father was naturalized before his 21st birthday.

Ah, and did you need to do anything?

Or were you automatically given retroactive citizenship?

@terdon I had to do something only because I had passed my 28th birthday, at which point I lost my Dutch nationality under a 10-year rule that kicks in when one turns 18. They subsequently changed the terms of that rule and allowed those who had been affected by the old version of the rule to regain Dutch nationality (retroactively) by making a declaration. My younger sister did not need to do that.

@phoog Huh. I stand corrected than. Thanks!