Fisher: Citizenship, Federalism, and Delayed Birth Registration 2024] C ITIZENSHIP, F EDERALISM, AND DELAYED BIRTH R EGISTRATION 51 her birth through her state’s delayed registration procedures, which allow individuals to register after the mandatory reporting period. 8 For Alecia to access the rights of U.S. citizenship, she needed the state to accept the facts of birth, and for the federal government to agree that she was a U.S. citizen. Until then, without any government claiming her as its citizen, she was stateless. Four Parts and a Conclusion follow this introduction. Part II provides background on birth registration, including the relationship between delayed birth registration and other processes that can be used to establish U.S. citizenship. Part III explores the experiences of individuals whose births were never registered and who spend a considerable period without access to the rights of U.S. citizens. It offers explanations for why births may go unregistered in the United States. This Part complicates what it means to be a U.S. citizen, pointing to a gap between entitlement to citizenship and government recognition of that entitlement. Individuals who are entitled to citizenship by the facts of their birth but whose births are not registered face a major disadvantage in being recognized as citizens and accessing the benefits of their U.S. citizenship. Part IV demonstrates that federal law has limited governance of delayed birth registration and that state law varies widely in delayed birth registration policies and procedures. Alecia was finally able to register her birth after the Texas legislature amended its delayed birth registration process—responding directly to Alecia’s compelling circumstances. 9 This manifests a previously unexplored aspect of immigration federalism 10 and citizenship federalism: 11 the impact of state law on 8. See infra Part IV. 9. RadioLab, supra note 2. It should be noted, though, that in some cases, federal agencies will require additional information to substantiate birth in the United States or challenge a delayed birth certificate, particularly for children born to immigrant and noncitizen parents. Angela R. Remus, Caught Between Sovereigns: Federal Agencies, States, and Birthright Citizens, 34 S TAN. L. & POL’Y R EV. 225, 227–28, 235 (2023). 10. Hiroshi Motomura, Federalism, International Human Rights, and Immigration Exceptionalism, 70 U. C OLO. L. R EV. 1361, 1361 (1999) (defining immigration federalism as situations when “states and localities . . . mak[e] and implement[] law and policy relating to immigration and immigrants”); Cristina M. Rodríguez, The Significance of the Local in Immigration Regulation, 106 MICH. L. R EV. 567, 569 (2008) (describing immigration federalism as “state and local efforts designed to control immigrant movement, define immigrant access to government, and regulate the practices of those with whom immigrants associate in the private sphere, namely employers and landlords.”); Stella Burch Elias, The New Immigration Federalism, 74 OHIO S T. L. J. 703, 707 (2013) (defining immigration federalism as “the engagement by national, state, and local governmental actors in immigration regulation.”). 11. Emily Chertoff, Citizenship Federalism, 81 MD. L. R EV. 503, 507 (2022) (defining citizenship federalism as “the practice of setting different boundaries for who is within the community than the federal government does” in areas like property rights and family law) (original emphasis removed). Published by IdeaExchange@UAkron, 2025 3