If a child is born of alien parents on a foreign merchant ship in US waters is it a citizen of the US?

Question

If a child is born of alien parents on a foreign merchant ship in US waters is it a citizen of the US?

Answer 1

The child has a right to citizenship in its parents country of citizenship.  As for citizenship of the flagging country, it depends on laws of the country where the vessel is flagged (registration & ownership), but if someone had no claims to citizenship elsewhere, it would probably be the country they  could lay claim to.  

As for whether it is in US waters, there is an economic zone, fishing rights zone, etc., so unless it was within 3 miles of shore (territorial waters), where the exact boundary for a claim of citizenship lies would likely have to work its way through the courts.  Furthermore, the parents would have to prove the precise location of the vessel at the time of the birth and it has to be corroborated.  Very tenuous claim here.  

The child is easily verified as a citizen of the parents' country of citizenship, and as a practical matter it is not worth spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and be tied up in the courts for a decade or more to lay such a tenuous, and perhaps ultimately unprovable, claim.  Especially since there is absolutely no benefit to the parents.  If they did not have permission to enter the US or be in US territorial waters, they could be deported as illegal aliens.

EDIT:  Jedi is referring to "internal waters" which would include, e.g. a barge on the Mississippi.  Coastal waters, Great Lakes, etc. are not "internal waters."

Answer 2

i wish it wasn't, who needs more anchor babies?

Answer 3

No. It is a citizen of the parents country.

Answer 4

The three mile rule applies here.

Answer 5

Yes, they would be considered US born. For example Senator John McCain was born in the Panama Canal zone. However, his parent's were both American's and in the military.

Answer 6

Yes. A child born on a foreign merchant ship or privately owned vessel within (internal waters not International waters) the 3-mile limit of the U.S. territorial seas were born “within the United States” and could be documented as U.S. citizens if they were also born subject to U.S. jurisdiction.