Comment by tzs
6 days ago
That question isn't really meaningful, because commission of a crime is a basis for jurisdiction.
Generally if party A commits a crime against party B jurisdiction can be claimed by (1) the country where the crime occurred, (2) the country A is a citizen of, and (3) the country B is a citizen of.
> jurisdiction can be claimed by (1) the country where the crime occurred
Or the birth, as it were?
>Or the birth, as it were?
Not always. The people of American Samoa do not have birthright citizenship in the United States. They are clearly under the jurisdiction of the US.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
They are not born/naturalized in the United States, but one of its territories. "Subject to the jurisdiction" is satisfied, but the other part is not.
(We can grant citizenship to territories by statute, like Puerto Rico, but the Constitution does not mandate it. American Samoa, thus far, doesn't seem to want it.)
The history of this is all a bit gross. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_Cases
8 replies →