SPOTLIGHT 25/02/24 S. Korean court denies US-born child dual citizenship

[성기화 요셉]

The East Asian nation has strict rules in place to curb the misuse of its dual citizenship laws

Children watched by adults play in a street fountain in Seoul in this file picture. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)

By UCA News reporter

Published: February 25, 2025 11:35 AM GMT

Updated: February 25, 2025 11:41 AM GMT

A South Korean court has upheld the decision of the country’s immigration department to deny dual Korean-US citizenship to a child after it found the mother guilty of engaging in “birth tourism,” says a report.

An administrative court in national capital Seoul ruled on Feb. 24 that the Seoul Southern Immigration Office’s decision rejecting the plaintiff’s February 2024 request for retaining dual citizenship was valid, The Korea Herald reported.

"There are substantial grounds to believe [that the plaintiff's mother] gave birth in a foreign country, with the intent to have the child gain citizenship there," the court said in its verdict.

South Korea's Nationality Act permits the child of a citizen to obtain citizenship at birth, and the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution grants citizenship to anyone born inside its territories.

This combination of laws facilitates the children of Korean citizens born in the US – such as the one in the plaintiff’s case – to receive dual citizenship at birth.

However, the Seoul immigration office rejected the application for dual citizenship in this particular case.

The immigration department said the plaintiff's mother is thought to have lived in the US only for the explicit purpose of obtaining US citizenship for her child, referred to as “birth tourism.”

In cases where birth tourism is proven, the child can retain his or her South Korean citizenship only after renouncing the other nationality, as per Korean law.

The plaintiff’s mother had gone to the US in 2003 just before giving birth to the plaintiff and stayed for a month and a half. She later returned to the US in 2011 and lived there for four months since then, the court heard.

The plaintiff denied the immigration office’s argument that the mother’s stay in the US was to ensure her child received US citizenship, saying she lived for four years in the country overall.

According to article 17-3 of South Korea’s Nationality Act a person who lived for two or more years in a country and gave birth there cannot be considered as having conducted birth tourism.

The court pointed out that the plaintiff’s mother had not stayed in the US for two consecutive years, making the plaintiff ineligible to apply for dual citizenship.

"The Nationality Act of this country had applied strict single nationality principle, and has only allowed dual citizenship on a limited number of cases since 2010,” the court noted.

The applicants for dual citizenship must pledge to the government not to exercise the rights of foreign citizenship before the age of 22, or within two years of completing their mandatory military service in the case of men.

This is to prevent dual citizens from dodging duties mandated for South Koreans, such as military service.

South Korea has a decades-long policy mandating all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 35 to serve in the military for at least 18 months.

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