US accused of wrongly granting citizenship to Russian diplomats’ children

Russia has accused the US State Department of unlawfully giving the American citizenship to Russian diplomats’ children, who were born in the United States. Russia said that this completely violates international norms and bilateral diplomatic practice.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote in Vedomosti newspaper that authorities in the US were invoking “birthright citizenship” to automatically register Russian diplomats’ children as US citizens, Xinhua news agency reported.

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“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 for Vedomosti.

Zakharova said that this is against international and national laws, US President Donald Trump’s policy as well as 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 added.

Further, the Russian official stated that the US legislation clearly excludes the right of diplomats’ children to get US citizenship via “birthright citizenship.”

She mentioned in her column for the newspaper that the US State Department aims to undermine President Trump’s anti-immigration policies along with the process of eliminating “friction points” in Russia-US relations. She added that it was using the children’s citizenship as a pretext to put pressure on Russian diplomats.

“The Russian side does not recognise 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 wrote.