Cite as: 523 U. S. 420 (1998)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
Registrar disclose that her birth was registered 10 days later, that she was named Lorena Peñero, that her mother was Luz Peñero, a Filipino national, and that her birth was "illegitimate." Spaces on the form referring to the name and the nationality of the father are blank.
Petitioner grew up and received her high school and college education in the Philippines. At least until after her 21st birthday, she never lived in the United States. App. 19. There is no evidence that either she or her mother ever resided outside of the Philippines.1
Petitioner's father, Charlie Miller, is an American citizen residing in Texas.2 He apparently served in the United States Air Force and was stationed in the Philippines at the time of petitioner's conception. Id., at 21. He never married petitioner's mother, and there is no evidence that he was in the Philippines at the time of petitioner's birth or that he ever returned there after completing his tour of duty. In 1992, Miller filed a petition in a Texas court to establish his relationship with petitioner. The petition was unopposed and the court entered a "Voluntary Paternity Decree" finding him "to be the biological and legal father of Lorelyn Pe-nero Miller." The decree provided that "[t]he parent-child relationship is created between the father and the child as if the child were born to the father and mother during marriage." App. to Pet. for Cert. 38.
1 Her mother was born in Leyte. Several years after petitioner's birth, her mother married a man named Frank Raspotnik and raised a family in Angeles City. App. 22.
2 Although there is no formal finding that his paternity has been established by clear and convincing evidence, it is undisputed. In a letter to petitioner's attorney, the State Department acknowledged that it was "satisfied that Mr. Charlie R. Miller, the putative father, is a U. S. citizen, that he possesses sufficient physical presence in the United States to transmit citizenship, and that there is sufficient evidence that he had access to the applicant's mother at the probable time of conception." App. to Pet. for Cert. 32-33.
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