I am a question on where to help my friend start. Her four year old daughter is a us citizen. She was born here while my friend was on a work visa. It has run out. She wants to become a permanant resident. Where does she start. All the visas say the children have to be over 21. Any help would be appreciated.

Just because the child was born here, the child was also born with the parent being on a visa. Citizenship laws can be very confusing and different. There's a chance that child will not obtain US citizenship because of that situation. You need to look at all the laws and really figure out if that child is by law regarded as a citizen or not. If your research comes out under the circumstances that that child is, you would have to wait till I think it's 18 or 21 in order for that child to do all the immigration forms.

Just because a child is born in a country does not automatically make them a citizen, this is a misconception people have...

The 14th amendment of the US constitution is very clear on the point that any child born in the US is a US citizen. The only exception is if the parents are here on a diplomatic visa with immunity, and therefore not subject to US jurisdiction.

With that out of the way, the only way a child can help his parents gain status is for the child to wait until his 21st birthday and then file an I-130 for his parents. After the petition is filed, there will be a multi-year wait for a visa number. I think the wait is something like 8-10 years these days, but that will surely change for better or worse before your friend is eligible. My guess is that Congress will change the laws in the next 30 years, too, but I don't have a crystal ball to say exactly how or when.

The other remote possibility is that an illegal alien may be eligible for cancellation of removal if the removal would result in "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" for a US citizen child of the alien. The phrase "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" isn't precisely defined, but it's generally taken to be a very high bar, something much more severe than the hardship one would ordinarily expect if a child's parents were deported. If the child requires medical treatment only available in the US, and the medical treatment involves transfusions or transplants that can only be supplied by the mother, the case has a reasonable chance of success. But if the child just wouldn't have the same educational opportunities in the parent's country as he/she has in the US, that's probably not enough. This is not an easy thing to qualify for.

Parents are classified as immediate relatives, and do NOT have to wait for a visa number. (Please see instructions for I-130 at the USCIS page.) However, because the child has to be atleast 21 yrs old to be eligible to petition for his/her parents, IF your friend decides to go this path, it will still be a long wait as lucyrich anticipates, just because of the child's age. Of course, your friend would also need to factor in the wait for regular processing even without the wait for the visa number.

I do not know enough to comment about the hardship condition.

p.s. The child is a citizen of this country by constitutional rights, there is nothing confusing about that part as far as US law is concerned.

That might have been what I was thinking of. I know if one is born on a US military base overseas that they are not a citizen of that country, but a citizen of the country who owns the military base (US for example). I did recall hearing about trying to change this law as many illegal immigrants are comming across the border just to have their children being born on US soil. I can't recall if their viewing those children as US citizens or not. Might want to look that up, there's been a lot of talk in the past about that. So wasn't sure if they were doing the same with certain non immigration work visa's or status...

The case of foreign citizenship for a child born on a US base on foreign soil would depend entirely on the other country's citizenship laws. Other country's citizenship laws vary in all kinds of ways. For example, Switzerland does not ever give Swiss citizenship based on one's birthplace.

But US law, in particular, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, is what determines that a child born in the US and subject to its jurisdiction is a US citizen.

I've heard of proposals to change this point, but since it's written in the Constitution, it would require a constitutional amendment to change. Congress can't do it by themselves. It's not easy to pass an amendment, and we'll all know if we do pass such an amendment.

Incidentally, this point of law is what makes it possible for native-born US citizens to prove their citizenship merely by providing their birth certificates. We don't have to worry about providing documentation of our parents' legal status at the time of our birth. Imagine the bureaucratic red tape that could ensue!

....but...they are!!

Unless they are foreign diplomats and a few other special cases. But the majority are it seems since there hasn't been an amendment to the constitution yet...

Actually, you are a U.S. Citizen automatically just because you are born in the U.S! As lucyrich, said it, that is what the general rule (jus soli) establishes: ALL persons born in the U.S. territory are american citizens. This constitutional rule does not apply in 2 cases:
- to foreign sovereigns and foreign diplomats and their families.
- to persons born in U.S. possessions or former possessions (Guam, Canal Zone, etc)

Citizenship by birth in the U.S. is not affected by the status of the parents of the child, so it does not matter how 'others may view" the fact that the parents are illegal immigrants, or on a work visa, tourist visa, or student visa.. that is irrelevant.




That is not accurate, installations located in foreign countries are not considered part of the U.S. territory for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. i.e. a child born in the U.S. Naval Station would not acquire U.S. citizenship at birth. However, the jus sanguini rule would be applied in this cases, if the parents or at least one of the parents is a U.S. Citizen.