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John Skrentny, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego, believes that, though birthright citizenship or jus soli is common throughout the Americas, "each nation-state had its own unique road to it".

More than 30 countries - including Canada, Mexico, Malaysia and Lesotho - practise automatic "jus soli", or "right of the soil" without restriction.

The droit du sol - right of the soil, also known as jus soli - is the legal notion that a person born on the territory of a nation automatically becomes a citizen of that nation.

The aforementioned Republic Act observes a couple of legal principles that many countries around the world have incorporated into their legislation: jus soli and jus sanguinis.

The past century and a half of jurisprudence on the question, resulting in the practice of permissive jus soli citizenship, is dubious at best.