Akron Law Review, Vol. 57 [2025], Iss. 1, Art. 2 70 AKRON LAW R EVIEW [57:49 Finally, children’s births may go unregistered if their parents align with certain religious and political movements that discourage birth registration and interaction with government agencies. 126 Adherents of the sovereign citizen movement, for example, believe that “your birth certificate and Social Security card are not benign documents, but contracts that enslave you.” 127 Just as internet forums like Quora and Reddit include posts of people trying to register their births, they also include posts from parents inquiring about the consequences of failing to obtain a birth certificate for a child. 128 IV. BIRTH REGISTRATION AND FEDERALISM Part IV.A takes two case studies loosely based on Alecia Pennington’s situation. It demonstrates that the same person with the same evidence of birth may face divergent outcomes depending on the state in which she seeks to register. Part IV.B argues that state law’s influence over a person’s access to birth registration procedures is an example of citizenship federalism: the impact of state and local government on a natural person’s ability to secure recognition of their entitlement to U.S. citizenship. Because recognition of citizenship requires individualized adjudication and concurrence of both the federal and state governments, registrations, when births are out of institutions and unattended by licensed medical professionals such as doctors or midwives). 126. See, e.g., Barrouquere, Sisters Settle over Social Security Cards, supra note 106; Barbara Cotter, Born in the USA; Without a Shred of Proof, THE GAZETTE, Sept. 30, 2011, https://gazette.com/news/born-in-the-usa-without-a-shred-of-proof/articl e_a9a684 fd-d024-531d 9b17-2282578cda4a.html [https://perma.cc/AKZ3-ZBBG]; see also The Boy Who Doesn’t Exist, DAILY MAIL, June 24, 2013, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346977/Noah-Boyce-raisedgrid-birthday-19.html [https://perma.cc/7ATX-BV8Z] (each describing situations of parents who refused to register their children’s births due to political or religious beliefs); see also Sovereign Citizens Movement, S. P OVERTY L.C TR., https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremistfiles/ideology/sovereign-citizens-movement [https://perma.cc/WU4Z-TC8F] (last visited Mar. 1, 2024) (noting that, according to sovereign citizens, “government has pledged its citizenry as collateral by selling their future earning capabilities to foreign investors, effectively enslaving all Americans. This sale, sovereign citizens claim, takes place at birth with the issuance of a birth certificate. . . . Sovereigns say that the government then uses that birth certificate to set up a corporate trust in the baby’s name . . ..”). 127. Ashley Powers, How Sovereign Citizens Helped Swindle $1 Billion From the Government They Disavow, N.Y. TIMES (Mar. 29, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/ business/sovereign-citizens-financial-crime.html [https://perma.cc/B93B-DVS6]. 128. QUORA, What Happens When I Don’t Register My Newborn Child a Birth Certificate?, https://www.quora.com/What-happens-when-I-dont-register-my-newborn -child-a-birth-certificate [https://perma.cc/3D7T-SBW5] (last visited July 1, 2023); QUORA, In the USA, is it Illegal to Never File a Birth Certificate like if, for Example, You Had a Home Birth?, https://www.quora.com/In-theUSA-is-it-illegal-to-never-file-a-birth-certificate-like-i f-fo r-example-you-had-a-home-bi rth [https://perma.cc/378Q-VLLG] (last visited July 3, 2023). https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/akronlawreview/vol57/iss1/2 22