The US State Department says that despite President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, it does not plan to change several longstanding policies regarding Jerusalem that were carefully crafted to avoid offending one side or the other.
Current policy holds that American citizens born in Jerusalem have only the city as their birthplace in their passports, unless they were born before Israel’s creation in 1948. In those cases, they can list “Palestine” as their birthplace.
Illustrative photo of a man holding a US passport (Shutterstock)
The State Department tells AP it will not revise the policy, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2015.
“At this time, there are no changes to our current practices regarding place of birth on Consular Reports of Birth Abroad and US Passports,” the department says in response to a query.
State Department officials also say that there are no plans to make changes in documents such as policy papers, travel announcements or transcripts of official events or to reprint current official maps.
— with AP
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