Are you worried that you might have inherited “U.S. Personhood” from an American emigrant parent, but never had your status documented and have lived your whole life solely as a citizen of the country where you actually reside? Then you might find this case interesting. Via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Cerrina was born prematurely in 1999 while her mother was visiting Mexico. Both of her parents were American citizens, but due to her early birth and some language difficulties, she wasn’t issued the correct form for babies born to American parents abroad. No one told her mother such a form was needed. When Crissy Foster brought her daughter home to Longview after the birth, the border guard who let them back into America even congratulated her on what he assumed was Cerrina’s automatic dual-citizenship, she said Friday.
But Cerrina didn’t have citizenship anywhere, as her mother soon learned … The United States wouldn’t issue a birth certificate to Cerrina without the correct paperwork from Mexico. And Mexico also didn’t claim her, because by law she was an American. At first the paperwork glitch seemed minor. But her case dragged on. It took a petition to the Mount Vernon School Board and a conference call with then-Congressman Brian Baird just to get Cerrina enrolled in kindergarten. She couldn’t be on her mother’s health insurance policy without a birth certificate, either.
