Moscow: Russia on Monday, May 4, accused the US State Department of unlawfully granting American citizenship to children of Russian diplomats born in the United States, a move Moscow says violates international norms and bilateral diplomatic practice.
In Vedomosti, a Russian business daily, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote that US authorities were invoking “birthright citizenship” to automatically register such children as US citizens, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The State Department, or those behind the facade of American diplomacy, have begun to extend US citizenship to children of employees of Russian consulates born within US jurisdiction—literally by force—under the pretext of the constitutionally enshrined ‘right of the soil’ and the allegedly limited nature of consular immunity,” Zakharova wrote in a column for Vedomosti.
She argued that this practice contradicts international and national law, the policy of US President Donald Trump, and the will of the parents.
“The deep state in the United States has created a new problem to pressure Russian diplomats, disregarding the fact that this is becoming a glaring example of the decline of the so-called ‘American democracy’,” she said.
Zakharova recalled that US legislation clearly excludes the right of diplomats’ children to obtain US citizenship through “birthright citizenship.”
In her view, the US State Department aims to undermine Trump’s anti-immigration policies and the process of eliminating “friction points” in Russia-US relations, while also using the children’s citizenship as a pretext to put pressure on Russian diplomats.
“The Russian side does not recognize the imposition of American citizenship on Russian citizens born in the families of our diplomatic, administrative, technical and consular staff in the United States. We will demand that the Americans confirm that the newborn is not under US jurisdiction,” she added.
