Description
This article is from the soc.culture.australian FAQ, by Stephen Wales
with numerous contributions by others.
3.2.3 Children born overseas
A child born outside Australia may be registered as an Australian
citizen by descent at the time of birth of the child. Registration
must be made within 18 years of the child's birth by a responsible
parent or guardian. Applications can be obtained from any Australian
mission overseas or the department of Immigration (etc.) in Australia.
[translation - if an Australian deliberately acquires citizenship of a
foreign country, they lose citizenship for at least a year... if it is
involuntary then there is no problem...]
[SW] Personal experience on dual citizenship for Australians with
children born abroad. The child automatically has the citizenship of
the foreign country. To register as an Australian by descent, you have
to provide originals of both parents birth certificates, the child's
birth certificate, the parent's marriage certificate (if appropriate)
and parent's passports. Send all of this plus the correct form and
the fee ($80 USD in the USA - rate as of May 1993) to the appropriate
consulate for the region you live in and then eventually you get a
Certificate of Australian Citizenship by Descent for the child. To
get a five (5) year child's passport you must present yourself (in
Person) at a Consulate or Embassy with the passport photos, the
application form and the appropriate endorsement on the photos (and
the Citizenship certificate of course). They'll then give you the
passport.
[MJ] This is not always true. A country gets to decide who it will
regard as its citizens. Basically there are two ways of doing this:
you can do it by birth (ie you are a citizen of a country if you are
born there) or you can do it by descent (if your parent(s) were citizens
of another country then you are a citizen of that country). Most countries
have a combination of the two systems. For instance, if you are born in the
US, you are a US citizen by right. If you are born out of the US to US
parent(s) (providing that the parent(s) have lived in the US at some point)
then you are a US citizen. However, not all countries operate like this.
Germany for instance operates entirely by descent. It is possible to be
born in Germany, only speak German and have never left Germany in your life
but not be a German citizen, and this is indeed the case for many people
of Turkish origin in Germany. A very similar situation is the case for
people of Korean origin in Japan.
Australia is closer to the other extreme. I do not know if birth
in Australia confers an automatic right to citizenship (the key question
is whether being born in Australia to parents who are illegal immigrants
entitles you to Australian citizenship). However, AFAIK you must _register_
the birth of a child overseas if that child is to be an Australian citizen.
This is unusually strict. Most countries give citizenship to children
in such cases. Registration is not necessary. This leads to an important
question, which is what happens when Australian parents have a child
in a country that does not confer citizenship automatically on the child
and do not register the birth. Does the child have any citizenship at all?
There is an international (UN, I think, although I forget which one) decree
which states that countries should wherever possible prevent the birth of
stateless people (those without any citizenship). Therefore, many countries
have laws that state that children of citizens of that country who do not
receive any other citizenship at birth shall receive the citizenship
of their parents regardless of the circumstances. (For instance, British
citizenship is given automatically to the children of people born in Britain,
but is not given to the children of British citizen not born in Britain
(ie it is one generation only). However, if the child of a British
citizen born outside Britain would receive no other citizenship, then
British citizenship is given to the child (ie if other citizenships are
not given to the children, British citizenship can be passed on to any
number of generations). The question is does Australia have such a
law? If Australian parents have a child in Germany, does that child
receive Australian citizenship even if the birth is not registered?
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