Alient Card & Citizenship

Alright, so I was talking with this girl who claims to live in Yokohama, threw a thread on a fashion site. In the forums for Japanese Culture, she keeps fighting with this girl, who lives (and has proven she does)in Tokyo.

The girl "in" Yokohama said she needs an alien card, even though she was born in Japan. She's Caucasian (Russian/Italian).

If you're born in Japan, and not Japanese do you still need an alien card? I thought if you were born in any country, you're born under their legal citizenship.

The girl "in" Yokohama said she needs an alien card, even though she was born in Japan. She's Caucasian (Russian/Italian).

If you're born in Japan, and not Japanese do you still need an alien card? I thought if you were born in any country, you're born under their legal citizenship.

Becoming a citizen by virtue of being born in that country is called Jus Soli, which applies to countries such as the US, but not to all countries in the world.

Japan, among numerous other nations, bestows citizenship through bloodline, i.e. Jus Sanguinis. In otherwords you would have to have a parent with Japanese citizenship to be born a Japanese citizen.

Therefore it is completely normal for the girl to have been born in Japan yet not be a Japanese citizen, and if she were living in Yokohama as she suggests, then she would be required to have an alien registration card.

heres some info about jus soli and jus sanguinis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis

looks like you lost the argument, heh.

japan has tens of thousands of koreans and chinese living as "foreigners" despite the fact they were born here, parents were born here, etc.. it happens to caucasians as well though it's more rare.

Jessica,

If you're born in Japan, and not Japanese do you still need an alien card?

If you are not Japanese, yes, you need an alien registration card.

Nationality is not "in all countries" determined by where you were born. Under US law, for example, if you were born in US territories, to give an extremely example even if you were born while your mom was flying over US in an aircraft, you are given US nationiality. In some other countries, including Japan, your "blood" determines your nationality, meaning, you are Japanese if at least one of your parents is Japanese.

So in your acquaintance's case, if her parents are Russian and Italian, she is not Japanese, so she needs an alien card.

There are in fact people who were born in Japan and whose parents were also born in Japan but they all still carry alien cards because the grandparents came from Korea, so none of them are Japanese citizens.

Immigration and citizenship laws vary widely between countries, as AK explained.

to give an extremely example even if you were born while your mom was flying over US in an aircraft, you are given US nationality.

Actually, It "depends".
If it is an international flight, one is not technically in the US (or many other countries) until they pass Immigration control.
This is why there's a distinction of when people are denied entry at Immigration, vs being deported by Immigration. Border crossings have always been a grey area, for example some Constitutional rights don't apply at border crossings (eg if the Customs Officer searches your bag without a warrant), because technically one isn't in the US yet.

Any case media attention usually favors the kid in rare instances in the US:

http://people.howstuffworks.com/air-birth.htm

But back to the subject about Japan, I don't think anything needs to be repeated much. Some Special Permanent Residents in Japan (to include Taiwanese and of course Koreans) their grandparents or great grandparents were Japanese nationals, but lost their Japanese Nationality after WW2.