I was born here (US) but my parents returned home when I was little.

Question

Years later I came to the US as a student. My visa is now expired and I want to claim my citizenship. Where can I start from. Parents have since died and theres no record whatsoever. Just pictures and their old passports.

Answer 1

Your citizenship follows your mother.  You may expect it is an automatic process to become an American Citizens, but the 14th Amendment is clear: if your parents were not citizen of this country, you are a citizen of the country your parents are from.

Answer 2

Are you one of those individuals whose parents were in the U.S. illegally, and then they returned to Mexico with small children who they then registered in Mexico as having been born in Mexico?

I've seen a few cases where U.S. citizen babies were taken to Mexico, their parents lied to the Mexican authorities and said the babies were born in Mexico. Then when the baby becomes an adult, the adult wants to come to the U.S., but the false statements from when the adult was a baby come back to haunt the person.

If you're one of those persons whose parents pretended they were born in Mexico, you're going to have a very hard time overcoming the presumption that you're an alien. After all, you applied for a visa with a Mexican passport and told the visa officer that you're Mexican (or some other nationality).

You had your chance at that point to claim U.S. citizenship, but you didn't.

Answer 3

This can't be right. If you wear born in US, that should be in your passport. The place of birth is written on the pass - doesn't matter from which country the pass comes from.

The second thing is that every birth in US is filed in the hospital... so imho, your question has no meaning...

later edit: you can do that claim @ the US Embassy in your country too! Actually that is the immigration law. You cannot do that while you only have a visa. If you do that you violate the immigration law and will be bad later for you to make your staying legal.

Answer 4

Start with your birth certificate. You should be able to get a copy from the department of vital records in the state you were born.

Answer 5

If you know the city and hospital where you were born you can contact the local vital records office for a copy of your birth certificate and start from there. Did you have dual citizenship or did you lose citizenship here? If you lost your US citizenship for the other country you might have to start all over again with first filing for residency and later citizenship.

Answer 6

Well, without any evidence, you'll have a very difficult time proving your claim. However, it should be possible to get a copy of your original birth certificate. that, plus proof of your identity should help.