The Ninth Circuit has held that a nunc pro tunc custody order - entered after the child’s 18th birthday and purporting to retroactively modify a joint custody order to award sole legal custody of the child to a U.S.-citizen parent - is not effective for deriving citizenship under a prior derivative citizenship statute. “2013 state court order was a proper nunc pro tunc order. We hold that Congress did not intend for this type of nunc pro tunc order, one untethered from the facts as they were during Carino’s childhood, to give rise to automatic derivative citizenship under section 1432(a).” “We hold that where it has not been proven that a custody order was entered in error, was contrary to law, or otherwise did not reflect the true legal relationship between a petitioner’s parents, a nunc pro tunc order cannot retroactively establish a naturalized parent’s sole legal custody for the purposes of section 1432(a). “
The full text of Padilla Carino v. Garland can be found here:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/05/18/18-72985.pdf