TW mother having baby in TW, father is US citizen - AIT help

Legal Dual Nationality
1

Hello everyone,
I’ve done a lot of searching and many of the threads on this topic are 6-10 years old so I’m not sure if much of it is relevant; Apologies if this is an extraneous topic.

My wife is a TW/US dual citizen. I am a US born citizen. We’ve decided to have our baby in TW since her family is there, and everything about the experience appears to be better for her there. Once she’s recovered, did the month long care, and gone through the process for a US citizenship/passport, we’ll bring the baby home.

I’ve read up on the process to get our child citizenship/passport from the AIT site, and there’s one piece that I’m not clear on: Does I, the father, have to be present for the interview? The sequence of events appears to be: I go to TW, baby arrives, schedule interview, wait until it’s safe for the baby to travel to the office, wait 4-6 weeks for documents, travel back. If I have to be there in person for the interview, it might exceed how much time I can take off from work.

Here’s what I’ve been able to find on the topic so far:
https://www.ait.org.tw/u-s-citizen-services/birth/overview/ states “Even if your child holds another nationality, he or she must enter and exit the United States on a U.S. passport.”

https://eforms.state.gov/Forms/ds11.pdf states:
"IF ONLY ONE PARENT APPEARS, YOU MUST ALSO SUBMIT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

  • Second parent’s notarized written statement or DS-3053 (including the child’s full name and date of birth) consenting to the passport issuance for the child."

The wording seems to imply that I do have to be present for the passport, but I will have to be there for the CRBA. I assume this is also the reason why we can’t just have the baby fly based on TW citizenship/passport?

Thank you all in advance!

2

Do I, the father, have to be present for the interview?

I don’t think you have to be there since your wife is also an AmCit and she can bring your DS-3053

You can try to email them at TaipeiACS@state.gov and double-check
image

I am a US citizen and my wife is not. When our son was born 6 years ago, my kid actually managed to get his US passport before he got his Taiwan passport and PRC Taibaojen. I remember thinking this was a lot easier and faster than I expected.

Our son was a couple days later than expected, and I do not recall using AIT’s schedule system BEFORE he was born. I do remember that the earliest appointments that could be scheduled took about 2 or 3 weeks then - which was fine since mother and child used the time to get stronger. Since I spent part of my childhood outside the US, my main concern was fulfilling the physical presence test. Ultimately, the entire process was straight-forward and not difficult or burdensome.

I clicked the link you posted. It seems the CRBA process is even more organized than when we used it.

3

You probably want to check department of state website also not only AIT.

Also be sure you want to accept this child will be a naturalized US citizen instead of a natural born US citizen and which there are differences not only cannot become president of the United States that there are other things to consider.

4

My kids were born in Malaysia and did my kids’ citizenship work at the US embassy there. Since we didn’t live near the embassy it was very hard and expensive.

  1. You must bring the newborn to the embassy. They didn’t even look at mine. Could have had a doll in the basket. We were in an unventilated room with 50 people from around the world. Not really a place for a newborn.

  2. You must have proof that you are substantially connected to the USA. Even though I was born in the US, white, etc. they wanted PROOF that I was connected to the USA. So I had to produce school records and whatnot to show then that I had actually lived in the US. Luckily I some documents with me in Malaysia. And, no, having a passport is not good enough. The newer rule is that they won’t give citizenship to kids whose parents have US citizenship but haven’t really lived in the US much.

  3. They will ask you silly questions about the US and your hometown, etc.

In Malaysia, they wouldn’t courier the passport to us so I had to fly down and pick it up myself.

Note: You will need to get a Taiwan birth certificate first. With this, they will issue a US Report of Birth Abroad (birth cert).

I could be wrong, but my guess is you will have to be there. You can’t even apply for a passport renewal in the USA without both parents.

FYI: You apply for birth cert, social security number and passport at the same time.

Given the sorry state of the US health care system I do recommend having a child in a place like Taiwan. We thought of flying to the US to have ours but the costs were just insane.

1 Like
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off topic. Being white is something special to be a us citizen?

6

Congratulations!

I’m not much help on the process, with one proviso.

If you have to get documents notarized, at any step, then bear in mind that you can only get US notary services at the AIT branches in Kaohsiung and Taipei. The kicker is the price: US$50 per signature. For example, I sold a house in the US in December. I had the contract sent here. It required 12 signatures on 14 pages of a single document. The cost was US$600.

Best of luck.

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I don’t think that this is correct. As far as I know, if at least one parent is a US citizen than the child is a citizen at birth. Naturalization is the process of becoming a citizen after birth.

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I’m very interested in this topic since I will be doing the same thing. My wife wants to have our 2nd child in TW and I will be doing basically the same thing as the original poster. The only difference is that I’m US Citizen and my wife is not. So I hope you update this with whatever you find out.

Thanks!

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That should be correct as long as there’s no diplomatic exception (and of course there isn’t in Taiwan), but being a citizen is one thing, and having proof of it is another.

@tango42 other than running for president, does a person born with US citizenship miss out on anything by being born overseas?

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$50 per signature. I never understood why they charge so much for this service. What a joke. Not only that, you have to make an appointment for it.

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tando:
If you haven’t noticed, the US often treats non-white people differently. Embassy staff are not exempt from that attitude. They are trained to profile people. And they do. As a white skinned human I am given less scrutiny. Sad but true.

Taipei:
$50 per signature. I never understood why they charge so much for this service. What a joke. Not only that, you have to make an appointment for it.

Yes, US Embassies in other countries have the same rip off rate. US citizen services suck compared to other country embassies I have had to deal with. Even as a non-citizen of Korean, their embassy gave me great service in renewing my Korea DL while abroad. They were kind, clear and fees were low.

The reason for the ripoff fees is that only the federal government is authorized to offer notary services outside the US. I had a friend who was a notary in Oregon and wanted to offer notary service (free of charge actually) in foreign countries but learned it was not possible and anything he stamped would legally be void. US Military abroad also has notaries and they are much cheaper. But no US Military bases in Taiwan - yet!

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12

“Natural born citizen” is a legal category and there’s reason to believe that a kid born to a citizen parent in Taiwan would still be considered a natural born citizen. Ted Cruz was born in Canada but was eligible to run for president, and so was McCain who was born in Panama. They were both considered “natural born citizens” by virtue of being born to US parents.

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Dude, your rambling experience about applying for your CRBA in Malaysia (US citizen and non-citizen with the citizen being present) has really nothing to do with this guy’s situation (two citizens with the father not being present).

It seems like you can file this DS-3053 form without you being present. The questions is that when it says it has to be notarized, does that mean you can fill it out stateside, get it notarized locally, and then mail it out to your wife or do you have to fill it out, mail it to your wife and have her notarize it at AIT. That question would be best answered by AIT and not the people in this forum.

I’m very interested in this topic since I will be doing the same thing. My wife wants to have our 2nd child in TW and I will be doing basically the same thing as the original poster. The only difference is that I’m US Citizen and my wife is not. So I hope you update this with whatever you find out.

Be aware that if your wife is a non-citizen, you’ll have to bring documentation showing that you lived for at least five years in that States.

https://www.ait.org.tw/u-s-citizen-services/birth/do-you-qualify-pass-citizenship/

To the OP, good luck flying 12-16 hours with a newborn!

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@alidarbac

Thanks for pointing that out. I can easily provide more than 10 years worth of documentation that I’ve lived in the USA. So that’s not a problem for me.

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Yes but Obama wasn’t qualified as he was supposedly born in Kenya! Well, according to Trump he was.

Funny how the wording was reinterpreted 8 years later so Cruz could run. McCain was born on a US Military base which is less controversial than a foreign country.

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Not exactly. I just read up on it – interesting stuff.

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I am a US citizen married to a TW citizen and we had all 3 of our children in Kaohsiung in 2012, 2014, and 2017. The process is really much simpler than it seems…

  1. Fill out the CBRA, Passport, and Social Security Card forms, and bring all of the required things (passport photos, original Taiwan birth certificate and an English translation that the hospital provided to us, etc.)
  2. Schedule an appointment at the AIT. I think we did ours about a week after the kiddos arrived, since I was in a similar situation with work.
  3. Go to the appointment and hand in the paperwork. From what I can remember, it’s not really an interview and we were out within 30 minutes or so. They really just make sure you didn’t forget any forms, and confirm that one or both of you is a US citizen. My US passport was sufficient proof of citizenship. After the appointment to hand in the paperwork, you don’t need to remain in Taiwan, since they will send everything in the mail.
  4. Wait for CBRA and Passport in the mail (we had ours sent to my wife’s parents’ house).
  5. SS card takes longer, from what I can remember, and I think we had it sent to our US address.
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@rburlette is correct in the process.

Every Embassy / officer is different. YMV.

As I remember a staff was assigned to make sure all documents were in order before going to the embassy (scan / emailed them). You may want to start that process before the birth as you will be travelling from afar.

In Malaysia, I had to show “Proof of Physical Presence in the U.S. of the U.S. Citizen Parent” for BOTH of my children. Had to show for the first one and then 3 years later submit the same documents again. Asinine.

Also, they wouldn’t mail anything or courier anything. I think that was a Malaysia thing as mail and couriers were deemed not reliable enough.

SS card came to my mom’s address in US as I didn’t have one.

19

Also, they wouldn’t mail anything or courier anything. I think that was a Malaysia thing as mail and couriers were deemed not reliable enough.

Yeah, this isn’t how it works in AIT. There is a courier service counter located inside the lobby. I think if you choose not to use it, they will use China Post – I never checked because I usually want to get my passport asap.

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I think you mean Chunghwa Post.