A child born outside of the United States, or its outlying possessions, to two married U.S. citizen parents is entitled to U.S. citizenship provided that one of the parents has been resident in the United States, or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of the child. (No specific period of time is required.)
If the child was born on, or after December 24, 1952 to an unwed U.S. citizen mother, the mother must have been physically present within the borders of the U.S., or its outlying possessions, for one continuous year prior to the child's birth, with no interruptions allowed.
Nothing about a US physical presence requirement before the age of 18 years. Both of the above are from the State Department websites too that summarize general rules.
Originally Posted by
trueblu
Thanks for the effort, although not entirely useful in our case unless you are suggesting my wife and I divorce before my
wife gives birth to the as yet not conceived child.
tb
Divorcing for reasons of convenience while still being a couple of sorts? That is well possible. Either way, such a path might not be useful if she doesn't have documented evidence of appropriate US physical presence to the extent required. [Unlikely, but possible.]
In the case of a US mother's genetic child currently born outside of wedlock at the time of the child's birth, one year of uninterrupted US physical presence even only as an adult would still entitle the US mother to relay citizenship at birth to her child.
To suggest whether or not being out of wedlock is the easier way for a US mother to relay US citizenship to the child at time of birth abroad, well that would require knowing more about the US mother's history. Talk about a potential marriage penalty.
The easiest (but not necessarily cheapest) way is sometimes to just do as
hfly suggests: give birth in the US. [However, given fraud or error possibilities when it comes to determinations and/or documentation, there's no guarantee that a child recognized as a US citizen as a product of birth conditions is going to have their US citizenship status better secured by being born in the US than being born abroad.]
Perhaps some who are intimately aware of the laws in this arena (of relaying US citizenship to a child born abroad) will understand why I said the handling of matters in this area is littered with a history of government displays of sex bias, marital status bias and even financial status bias. And that's even when only referring to forms of bias that is institutionalized under law.