A United States citizen faces no immigration consequences for any conviction. A citizen cannot be prosecuted for any offense for which alienage is an element (such as illegal re-entry). All persons born in the United States and Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens. Many people who were born in other countries also are U.S. citizens and may not know it. Many people born abroad inherited U.S. citizenship at birth from a parent without being aware of it. Others who were permanent residents as children may have automatically become citizens when a parent was naturalized.³¹⁴ To begin the inquiry, ask the
defendant the following two threshold questions:

• When you were born did you have a parent or a grandparent who was a U.S.
citizen?

• At any time before your 18th birthday did the following take place (in any order): you
were a permanent resident, and one or both parents naturalized to U.S. citizenship?

If the answer to either threshold question might be yes, additional information needs to be collected, after which the case may be analyzed according to a citizenship chart. For assistance contact an immigration attorney or resource center; local non-profit immigration organizations also have expertise in this area, and if your local U.S. Passport office is not overburdened it might offer assistance. Note that if the client is a
U.S. citizen, generally it is faster and better to apply for an American passport at a U.S.
passport agency as proof of citizenship than to ask the immigration authorities for a citizenship certificate. The defendant can assert citizenship as a defense in removal proceedings and have the immigration judge terminate the case against her. But she will still need to apply for a passport or certificate, to prove citizenship.

³¹⁴ The conditions for LPR children under 18 to automatically become U.S. citizens upon the naturalization of a parent were liberalized by the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-395, Act of Oct. 30, 2000, 114 Stat. 1631, which took effect on 2-27-2001. INA Sec 320; 8 USC 1431. The change was not retroactive.