For people born before 1986, their American fathers had to have lived in the U.S. for 10 years, at least five of them after the age of 14, in order for their citizenship to be passed on. Flores-Villar’s father could not meet the second part of that requirement because he was only 16 when his son was born.

It’s an old law and it’s been changed—which is why it only applied to people born prior to 1986—but the real problem here is that Flores-Villar’s father’s age when he was born. He couldn’t meet the requirement, but that same requirement would not have applied to Flores-Villar’s mother had she been American and the same age when he was born.

I definitely think there’s an inherently racist—or at least, jingoistic—intent there, but that’s not surprising, as matrilineal descent has almost always been about maintaining some kind of ethnic purity.

clairedammit, if you have UK citizenship, why wouldn’t your children have it too? Am I missing something? I am married to a British man and live in the UK and thought that any potential future children we had could be dual citizens regardless of where they are born…

Yep, that’s about the size of it. Matrilineal descent historically was used to prevent the obvious consequences of male privilege—i.e. you can fuck whichever women you want but only the children by “right” kind of women (the ones from your own ethnic group, usually) can be treated as legitimate.

Becky, I agree completely. We Jews need everyone who wants to be a member of the tribe. Descent is so not important.

I hope the plaintiff carries the day here.