Child Citizenship Act of 2000
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The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 is a United States federal law that allows certain foreign-born, biological and adopted children of United States citizens to acquire U.S. citizenship automatically. These children did not acquire U.S. citizenship at birth, but they are granted citizenship when they enter the United States as lawful permanent residents.
[edit] Whom the act applies to
The child must have at least one U.S. citizen parent by birth or naturalization; be under 18 years of age; live in the legal and physical custody of the U.S. citizen parent; and be admitted as an immigrant for lawful permanent residence. In addition, if the child is adopted, the adoption must be full and final.
The effective date of the Child Citizenship Act is February 27, 2001. Children who met the requirements of the Act on that date automatically became U.S. citizens. Children who were 18 years of age or older on that date did not acquire U.S. citizenship from the Child Citizenship Act of 2000.
The Act is known as Public Law 106-395, and is codified at 8 U.S.C. ยงยง 1431-33.
[edit] Why the act was necessary
Structural discrimination against Americans born abroad and immigrants is endemic in US federal government cival servant circles. This act was necessary to avoid the large scale deportations that would probably arise exclusivly from the US Immigration Department, Department of State (that oversees citizenship of Americans born aborad) taking their time with respect to children who happen to have had one parent born abroad.
Civil Rights reasons for the law
- The previous citizenship laws in the US were sexist, with only citizenship coming via the male parent and not the female parent.
- In effect, previous US citizenship laws did not grant full citizenship to females US citizens.
- With respect to Americans being born in Canada during the Vietnam War era, structural discriminion was so intense that some of these children took 17.9 years to get citizenship. This kind of strutural discrimination must have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars of welfare and social security benefits.
