
The first sentence of the fourteenth amendment of the US Constitution:
"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.
The important part that is under dispute is the phrase "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof". The authors of the amendment, and the interpretation until recently was that phrase meant that you had some sort of connection with the US by which you were subject to the laws of the US. So if you were born of parents who are permanent residents (green card holders) then who are a natural born citizen. If you are born of parents who were on vacation in the US under a tourist visa, no the location of your birth is incidental and does not grant you citizenship. Almost every other country in the world grants citizenship throught the citizenship or ethnicity of the parents of the child.
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