The United States Department of State will tighten requirements for valid birth certificates used as primary proof of US citizenship for passport purposes effect April 1, 2011. [No, this is not an April Fool joke]
Beginning April 1, 2011, the U.S. Department of State will require the full names of the applicant’s parent(s) to be listed on all certified birth certificates to be considered as primary evidence of U.S. citizenship for all passport applicants, regardless of age. Certified birth certificates missing this information will not be acceptable as evidence of citizenship. This will not affect applications already in-process that have been submitted or accepted before the effective date.
Here is an example of a birth certificate that would NOT meet this requirement:
Donald Trump hospital certificate (Newsmax)
Is this new requirement a direct attack at the birth certificate released by Donald Trump?
Apparently not; while I don’t know exactly when the Department of State released its new requirement, I know that it was reported on March 24, 4 days before Trump posted his hospital souvenir.
The following are the existing requirements, at least two of which the Trump souvenir lacks:
- Full name of the applicant
- Date of birth
- Place of birth
- Raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal of issuing authority
- Registrar’s signature
- The date the certificate was filed with the registrar’s office (must be within one year)
Here is an example of a birth certificate that meets the new and existing requirements:
Barack Obama Certification of Live Birth from Hawaii (FactCheck.org)
So if, for whatever reason, the father’s name is not on the BC, you’re not a citizen? I hope there’s more to this.
Trump is now backtracking.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/29/trump-aide-says-release-of-unofficial-birth-certificate-an-oversight/
The requirement says “parent(s)” which I presume would allow a certificate without a father’s name. Also this regulation refers to “primary proof” of citizenship, meaning that this is all you need. There is also a “secondary” route for other kinds of documents (e.g. hospital birth certificate, baptism records, early school records, medical records and a family Bible).
See the following for details:
http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/secondary_evidence/secondary_evidence_4315.html
The official certified BC’s I got from the District of Columbia for both my daughters in 1986 contain only 1) name, and 2) date of birth. They both have SS#s, drivers licenses, & passports. I assume anyone who has a passport already will be grandfathered in. So if I reapply for BCs from the appropriate agency after April 1, will they be issuing updated versions immediately? And if not, are some citizens going to be issued BCs which are effectively incomplete?
Ronald Reagan’s BC (filed more than one year after birth) is an example of one that would require secondary evidence. However, I would think that in his era perhaps the State Dept had different requirements for passport issuance given that government-issued BCs weren’t necessarily universal around the time of his birth.
I’m also wondering about the “parent(s)” thing. I’ve seen quite a few images of birth certificates where the father isn’t listed. I’ve even seen one from Pennsylvania (a computer generated abstract) where neither parent is listed, although that was issued more than 20 years ago. There’s also the issue of place of birth. If you look around for Pennsylvania’s BC, they only list the county of birth and not the city. Pennsylvania’s is actually rather odd. They have five headings printed right into the security paper (DOB, County of Birth, File Number, Date Filed, and Date Issued). Every other heading is printed along with the BC information, including “NAME” and “SEX”.
Trump has now released a certified birth record to ABC News.
You are defending the indefensible you silly OBOTS.
Donald Trump?
Methinks it’s that racist girl reporter.
that silyy “2 hospital” story keeps popping back up, do birthers insist on displaying gullibility for silly stories? That is so funny yet sad!
Or KBOA Tracey, the waitress allegedly fired for spitting in customer’s food.
Here’s the Trump state certified BC
http://abcnews.go.com/US/page?id=13248168
Well they still ask for his school records because they believe he got a scholarship for being a foreign student all based off an april fools day article years ago. So yes they insist on displaying gullibility.
And once again idiot birthers in the comments trying to prop up Trump with the old long form, doctor’s signature and hospital name b.s. over at the Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2011/0329/No-birth-certificate-Is-Donald-Trump-a-real-person
Funny article, though:
“No birth certificate? Is ‘Donald Trump’ a real person?”
She uses that dumb phrase “silly obots” too? Hmmmm.
You have to wonder why they released 2 different birth certs on the same day first a “Certification of Birth” which was virtually identical to President Obama’s, and now this.
Its because, as with all Birfoons they can’t do anything right….see taitz et-al passim
The “short form” was released firts with great hoopla on “mewsmax” followed by an “Oh poo” moment when the mupptes looked at it and realised it has the same information as the Obama one……..
Desperate back pedal 2…… They find an old copy of what doesn’t show an official seal, a “longer form”.
They’re birthers, what do you expect, competence…..?
The latest Trump BC is interesting. It doesn’t show the date the copy was issued, but the copy has the signature of Mayor William O’Dwyer, who as mayor from 1946-1950. So this copy was made a real long time ago. Questionable whether a copy issued today would look like this.
The raised seal isn’t evident, but this scan is terrible, so you can’t conclude anything.
Suranis — I didn’t see the copy that look like Obama’s, just the hospital souvenir — do you have a link?
Not sure what you mean. The hospital one doesn’t look remotely like Obama’s.Why would it? One is a hospital generated souvenir created in 1946 in New York and the other is a state generated certificate created in Hawaii in 2007.
Looking at the new Trump BC — the State Dept requires that the BC show the date it was filed with the registrar’s office. I’m having trouble finding that. There something faint stamped in the upper left corner. I could imagine is says Jun 17, but the year number is unclear, but appears to end in 8. Can anybody puzzle this out?
It’s really pale. I think it says June 17, but I can’t otherwise make out the year.
I think this is the way they put it in the microfiche, complete with the signatures of the Mayor and Registrar at the time it was filed. It looks like they’ve completed a typed template and appended the same one for every file.
This obviously isn’t a contemporary BC from around the time Trump was born. I would think back then (before photocopying was adequate or affordable) they would probably have produced a typed or handwritten transcript. The template mentions an ordinance that allows anyone to get this particular form of their record for free. It sounds more like the plain photocopy that someone in Hawaii can request, but without the certification marks.
What is the purpose of the requirement that the parents be listed on the certificate before the State Department will accept it?
In circumstances where the parents and their child had diplomatic immunity, I had assumed that the relevant state or local government would simply not issue a birth certificate. Was I mistaken? Does the State Department fear that registrars will be unaware of the fact that the family has diplomatic immunity or fail to realise that the family is not subject to US jurisdiction?
If birth certificates were being issued to the children of diplomats, then I suppose that the State Department would want to check the parents’ names against their records of all those with diplomatic immunity from US jurisdiction. My understanding is that the State Department keeps a central database of all such records so that they can respond at any time to police inquiries about whether someone claiming immunity from arrest actually enjoys such status.
Dr C tried to produce several reversed images for better clarity. In one of those, I think it might actually state the date in the format “1946 June 17” (and I’m thinking maybe “PM 3:48” after that), although someone should have slapped the clerk who completed this for stamping it right over where it says “Full Name of Child”. It might have gone into something like a punch clock, which might not be terribly precise with placement.
There was the infamous informational BC from Riverside County, CA of Prince Albert’s (of Monaco) illegitimate daughter. It lists him as the father. I don’t know if he’s a diplomat per se, but I’ve understood that foreign heads of state are generally considered to have diplomatic immunity when overseas. For the most part I don’t think hospitals are big on trying to figure out the diplomatic status of the parents. Would a city/county/state registrar really do that much research before filing a birth certificate?
That’s the other thing that bugs me about the supposed non natural-born status for the children of those with diplomatic immunity. What if we’re talking about one parent who is a citizen of the US with another parent a diplomat. It might be different if we’re talking about a child born to a diplomat and the non-US-citizen spouse of that diplomat. How is this handled if one parent is a US citizen or permanent resident?
This is one of the few “scoops” I’ve had.
Off hand, I cannot think of any reason why a state wouldn’t issue a birth certificate to someone born in the jurisdiction, regardless of who their parents were. States aren’t involved with issues of citizenship, just birth facts. I’ve never seen a check box on a birth form for “diplomat” so I don’t know how a state would even know the status of the parent for the purposes of not issuing a certificate even if they wanted to.
The addition of parent information, when you think about it, is really a requirement for a birth certificate to be proof of citizenship. Also, the Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on the citizenship status of the children of illegal aliens either, so to be on the safe side, the State Department might want to know who the parents were.
Interesting discussion about children of diplomats here: http://www.cis.org/krikorian/children-of-diplomats
From the old Foreign Relations Manual:
Under international law, diplomatic agents are immune from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving state. Diplomatic agents are also immune, with limited exception, from the civil and administrative jurisdiction of the state. The immunities of diplomatic agents extend to the members of their family forming part of their household. For this reason children born in the United States to diplomats to the United States are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction and do not acquire U.S. citizenship under the 14th Amendment or the laws derived from it.
…”And anyway, the U.S.-born children of diplomats are automatically eligible for a green card, allowing them to become U.S. citizens after a period of a few years, making the whole concept of diplomats’ kids not being citizens kind of moot.”
From the USCIC site: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=5c1d3a4107083210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=5c1d3a4107083210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD
Green Card for a Person Born in the United States to a Foreign Diplomat
A person born in the United States to a foreign diplomatic officer accredited to the United States is not subject to the jurisdiction of United States law. Therefore, that person cannot be considered a U.S. citizen at birth under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This person may, however, be considered a permanent resident at birth and able to receive a green card through creation of record.
To determine whether your parent is a foreign diplomatic officer, your parent’s accredited title must be listed in the State Department Diplomatic List, also known as the Blue List. This list includes:
Ambassadors
Ministers
Charges d’affaires
Counselors
Secretaries and attaches of embassies and legations
Members of the Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities
It also includes those with comparable diplomatic status and immunities assigned to the United Nations or to the Organization of American States and other persons who have comparable diplomatic status.
For more information, refer to Section 101(a)(20), 103, 262, 264 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and 8 CFR 101.3, 101.4 and 264.2.
I would think that from a BC perspective whoever is identified as the father by the mother and placed on the BC is the father for legal purposes. So, if the mother of this illegitimate daughter of Prince Albert wanted her daughter to have U.S. citizenship she could have put someone else’s name, or even no name for the father.
You’ve got to be careful here- there are at least three degrees of diplomatic immunity. There is the immunity of the actual diplomats, that of their dependents and there is even the immunity of US citizens working for foreign diplomats.
The last category enjoys diplomatic immunity as far as their actual official work for the embassy is concerned. So, they can be arrested, their own home can be searched and so on, but prosecution for what they did when on their actual job is impossible. No way Orly can subpoena the secretary at the Kenyan Embassy who happens to be a uS citizen to find out whether she did any paper work with the name Obama on (she was considering that at one moment but finally settled with suing the Ambassadors of Britain, Kenya, Indonesid, Pakistan and Russia before the US Supreme Court in one enormous Quo Warranto case which went nowhere).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity
We have been avoiding the issue, but diplomats fathering children and then refusing to support the child and leaving everything to the US citizen mother seem to be a problem. There is a chapter there on “Diplodads”!
A problem would arise when the adult son of an actual diplomat fathered a child in the US with a US citizen mother. If the domicile of the child’s father was the same as the diplomat’s, the child may not be automatically entitled to US citizenship, but neither would the mother be able to get alimony in the US. She would have to sue in the other country. Enough to convince her to fill in “father unknown” on the birth certificate?
Prosecuting the US citizen official chauffeur of a foreign Ambassador for traffic violations may prove a legal nightmare for US police forces, but there is no doubt that the children of that chauffeur born in the USA, are US citizens.
Yes, I must admit that I was using “diplomatic immunity” in the colloquial manner to refer to those who are fully immune from arrest in the US for the entirety of their stay in the US. This applies to only a small minority of those who work at embassies and consulates.
Most staff members at embassies and consulates are immune from legal action in the US in relation to the decisions they make in their jobs, but fully liable to be arrested and prosecuted for crimes that they may commit in any other capacity. My understanding is that children born in the US to parents falling into this far more common category are US citizens.
This begins to touch on the multiple exceptional cases that could arise if the birthers were successful in creating and absolute definition of NBC (either by court or state ruling that the courts did not overturn). However, their definition, which conveniently works well against Obama, would have some interesting consequences:
1. Children of diplomats that never actually live with the diplomats (possibly illegitimate).
2. A woman (presumed citizen) is raped by a person not under jurisdiction (diplomat, invader, etc.). The extra oddity here is that she would keep the baby (to term and raise it), yet the baby would be punished because of the unknown father.
3. Two immigrants, let’s say from Ireland, are set to have a child and the father dies before the baby is born (and he becomes naturalized). The mother becomes a citizen soon after and remains in the US the rest of her life.
4. A young pregnant US mother and her permanent resident husband, who is working toward citizenship, take a trip from Detroit to Buffalo, cutting through Canada. Something happens and she goes into labor and gives birth early in Toronto. After checking out the Hacker Hailstorm in the CN Tower, they return home to the US.
All of these scenarios would, in birther terms, not be an NBC and the last one could be argued as not NBC in non-birther terms.
This is where I see an absolute definition as not being up to the task of fulfilling the intent of the founders. Given the above, I believe it would be best to trust in the faith of the voters and electors to determine if the candidate meets the currently understood intent of the phrase. The founders had great trust in the electoral system they created. There is the irony that the birthers, who claim they are falling the wishes of the founders and the constitution they created, openly defy a bedrock principle of the founders, the faith in the people. I cannot imagine how a republic/democracy could be created without that faith.