The Expatriation Act of 1868 was an act of the 40th United States Congress that declared, as part of the United States nationality law, that the right of expatriation (i.e. a right to renounce one's citizenship) is "a natural and inherent right of all people" and "that any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officers of this government which restricts, impairs, or questions the right of expatriation, is hereby declared inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this government".[1]
The intent of the act was also to counter claims by other countries that U.S. citizens owed them allegiance, and was an explicit rejection of the feudal common law principle of perpetual allegiance.[2]
The United States had, since its early days, implicitly denied the doctrine of perpetual allegiance through its naturalization laws. President Thomas Jefferson wrote to Treasury SecretaryAlbert Gallatin that "I hold the right of expatriation to be inherent in every man by the laws of nature … the individual may [exercise such right] by any effectual and unequivocal act or declaration".
Other countries, however, did not recognise this position; indeed, the British Royal Navy's impressment of American sailors was one of the casus belli provoking the U.S. to join the War of 1812.[5] Those countries' non-recognition of renunciation of their citizenship continued to cause problems for naturalized Americans during the course of the century. In the 1860s, France as well as various German and Scandinavian states attempted to conscript their natives who had become U.S. citizens when they went back to their homelands for short visits.[5][6] France, Italy, and Switzerland however at least had procedures for abjuring one's original allegiance; Greece, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire did not have such procedures at all, and even sometimes punished their natives for acquiring U.S. citizenship.[7]
In response to this, President Andrew Johnson called on Congress in his Second Annual Message in December 1866 to assert "the principle so long maintained by the executive department that naturalization by one state fully exempts the native-born subject of any other state from the performance of military service under any foreign government".[1] The problem was illustrated more acutely the following year when Britain charged naturalized Americans John Warren and Augustine Costello of the Fenian Brotherhood under the Treason Felony Act 1848.[1][8] Johnson used this example to illustrate the urgency of the problem in his Third Annual Message in December 1867, stating that it "perplexes the public mind concerning the rights of naturalized citizens and impairs the national authority abroad".[1]
Debate and enactment
In January 1868, the month after Johnson's Third Annual Message, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs issued a report on nationality issues; their report argued against the doctrine of perpetual allegiance, stating that countries which permitted emigration implicitly recognized the right to renounce one's citizenship as well. Nathaniel P. Banks, head of the committee, introduced the bill that would become the Expatriation Act on that same day.[9] One of the bill's major proponents was Frederick E. Woodbridge of Vermont.[2] The initial version of the bill had harsh provisions for retaliation against the countries which refused to recognize the right to renounce one's citizenship; for example, if an American was arrested by his native country, the bill would have given the president the power to order the arrest of any of the subjects of that country living in the United States. An amendment added the preamble; the bill as amended was adopted in the House by a vote of 104 to 4. The bill then came before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; the major amendment in the Senate was to ensure that the retaliatory measures taken by the president would be limited to those "not amounting to acts of war". The Senate passed the amended bill 39–7; the amended bill was concurred in by the House.[10]
The Expatriation Act came into law one day before the Fourteenth Amendment, which introduced the principle of birthright citizenship into the Constitution.[11] The attitude towards emigration and loss of citizenship expressed in the Expatriation Act of 1868 was echoed by the contemporaneous Burlingame Treaty between the United States and China's Qing dynasty, which stated that both signatory parties recognized "the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of ... free migration and emigration ... for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents".[3] Other migrant-sending countries also moved towards the principle of recognition of renunciation of citizenship as well, for example through the Bancroft Treaties.[11] By the late nineteenth century, the doctrine of perpetual allegiance had died a "surprisingly speedy and unlamented death".[12]
Loss of United States citizenship under the Act
Early policies
The Expatriation Act of 1868 did not explicitly create any procedure by which a U.S. citizen might exercise his or her right to give up citizenship. Existing law — namely, the Enrollment Act of 1865 § 21[13] — provided only two grounds for loss of citizenship, those being draft evasion and desertion.[11][14] The Bancroft Treaties also had provisions that naturalized U.S. citizens would be deemed to have renounced their U.S. citizenship and resumed their original citizenship if they returned to their native countries and remained there for a certain period of time. Finally, in 1873, Attorney-General George Henry Williams wrote that "the affirmation by Congress, that the right of expatriation is 'a natural and inherent right in all people' includes citizens of the United States as well as others, and the executive should give to it that comprehensive effect." However, William's statement was mostly used to justify the denaturalization of naturalized U.S. citizens.[15] In general, a naturalized American who took up a position in the government or military of his native country was considered to have given up his U.S. citizenship and resumed his original one; however, naturalized Americans who did these same acts in other countries which were not their native countries were seen as having given up their right to U.S. protection, but not to U.S. citizenship itself. In particular, the State Department did not consider that mere establishment of non-U.S. domicile was sufficient grounds for revoking U.S. citizenship.[16]
There would be no legislation regarding grounds for loss of U.S. citizenship by native-born citizens until the Expatriation Act of 1907 (34Stat.1228).[11][14] Before then, the State Department and the courts seemed to agree that the only act which would cause a native-born citizen to lose U.S. citizenship was voluntary acquisition of citizen or subject status in a foreign state.[17] Even foreign military service was not necessarily held to result in loss of U.S. citizenship; the precedent pointed out by Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State during the late 1880s, was that the U.S. did not consider the French who joined the American Revolution to have thus acquired U.S. citizenship. Similarly, voting in a foreign election was not held as definitive evidence of intent to give up citizenship, in the absence of an express acquisition of foreign citizenship and renunciation of the U.S. one.[18] However, the Expatriation Act of 1907 and subsequent legislation would thenceforth broaden the number of actions which, if undertaken voluntarily, would be considered by the U.S. government to prove the intent to lose U.S. citizenship.[19]
Later case law
In the 1950 case Savorgnan v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a woman who applied for Italian citizenship by virtue of her marriage to her husband had voluntarily given up her U.S. citizenship. Associate Justice Harold Hitz Burton wrote that:[20]
Traditionally the United States has supported the right of expatriation as a natural and inherent right of all people. Denial, restriction, impairment or questioning of that right was declared by Congress, in 1868, to be inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this Government. From the beginning, one of the most obvious and effective forms of expatriation has been that of naturalization under the laws of another nation. However, due to the common-law prohibition of expatriation without the consent of the sovereign, our courts hesitated to recognize expatriation of our citizens, even by foreign naturalization, without the express consent of our Government. Congress finally gave its consent upon the specific terms stated in the Citizenship Act of 1907 and in its successor, the Nationality Act of 1940. Those Acts are to be read in the light of the declaration of policy favoring freedom of expatriation which stands unrepealed.
And, in his footnote:
The above language [i.e. the preamble of the Expatriation Act, which he quoted], when enacted, was intended to apply especially to immigrants into the United States. It sought to emphasize the natural and inherent right of such people to expatriate themselves from their native nationalities. It sought also to secure for them full recognition of their newly acquired American citizenship. The language is also broad enough to cover, and does cover, the corresponding natural and inherent right of American citizens to expatriate themselves.
In the 1957 case Briehl v. Dulles, the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held that the Department of State could lawfully deny issuance of a United States passport to an applicant who refused to execute an affidavit regarding his political affiliations. However, in a dissenting opinion, Judge David L. Bazelon argued that "[s]ince expatriation is today impossible without leaving the country, the policy expressed by Congress in 1868 and never repealed precludes a reading of the passport and travel control statutes which would permit the Secretary of State to prevent citizens from leaving". Chief Judge Henry White Edgerton concurred with Bazelon's opinion.[21]
Congress's power to legislate for implicit expatriation of Americans was later heavily restricted by the 1967 case Afroyim v. Rusk, which concluded that natural-born Americans cannot be deprived of citizenship by any means except a voluntary renunciation in the presence of a consular official. Associate Justice Hugo Black's majority opinion extensively discussed the Expatriation Act of 1868, including the history of proposed amendments to it.[22]
↑ Long title: the Act to amend the several acts heretofore passed to provide for the Enrolling and Calling out the National Forces, and for other Purposes, passed on March 3, 1865; the relevant section can be found at 13Stat.490
↑ Briehl v. Dulles,248 F.2d 561, 583, 113(U.S.App.D.C.1957). The ruling in Briehl v. Dulles was reversed by the Supreme Court, but the reversal made no reference to the Expatriation Act of 1868. See Kent v. Dulles,357 U.S. 116(1958).
Erler, Edward J. (2003). "From subjects to citizens: the social compact of origins of American citizenship". In Pestritto, Ronald J.; West, Thomas G. (eds.). The American Founding and the Social Compact. Lexington Books. OCLC51726670.
An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed, or freely committed, by the people, subjects or citizens to their state or sovereign.
Canadian nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of Canada. The primary law governing these regulations is the Citizenship Act, which came into force on February 15, 1977 and is applicable to all provinces and territories of Canada.
United States nationality law details the conditions in which a person holds United States nationality. In the United States, nationality is typically obtained through provisions in the U.S. Constitution, various laws, and international agreements. Citizenship is a right, not a privilege. While domestic documents often use citizenship and nationality interchangeably, nationality refers to the legal means in which a person obtains a national identity and formal membership in a nation and citizenship refers to the relationship held by nationals who are also citizens.
The Bancroft treaties, also called the Bancroft conventions, were a series of agreements made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries between the United States and other countries. They recognized the right of each party's nationals to become naturalized citizens of the other; and defined circumstances in which naturalized persons were legally presumed to have abandoned their new citizenship and resumed their old one.
The Cable Act of 1922 was a United States federal law that partially reversed the Expatriation Act of 1907. (It is also known as the Married Women's Citizenship Act or the Women's Citizenship Act). In theory the law was designed to grant women their own national identity; however, in practice, as it still retained vestiges of coverture, tying a woman's legal identity to her husband's, it had to be amended multiple times before it granted women citizenship in their own right.
The Oath of Allegiance of the United States is the official oath of allegiance that must be taken and subscribed by every immigrant who wishes to become a United States citizen.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 was a law of the United States Congress that set the first uniform rules for the granting of United States citizenship by naturalization. The law limited naturalization to "free White person(s) ... of good character", thus excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, enslaved people, free black people, and later Asians, although free black people were allowed citizenship at the state level in many states. The courts also associated whiteness with Christianity and thus excluded Muslim immigrants from citizenship until the decision Ex Parte Mohriez recognized citizenship for a Saudi Muslim man in 1944.
Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled that citizens of the United States may not be deprived of their citizenship involuntarily. The U.S. government had attempted to revoke the citizenship of Beys Afroyim, a man born in Poland, because he had cast a vote in an Israeli election after becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. The Supreme Court decided that Afroyim's right to retain his citizenship was guaranteed by the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In so doing, the Court struck down a federal law mandating loss of U.S. citizenship for voting in a foreign election—thereby overruling one of its own precedents, Perez v. Brownell (1958), in which it had upheld loss of citizenship under similar circumstances less than a decade earlier.
Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44 (1958), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court affirmed Congress's right to revoke United States citizenship as a result of a citizen's voluntary performance of specified actions, even in the absence of any intent or desire on the person's part to lose citizenship. Specifically, the Supreme Court upheld an act of Congress which provided for revocation of citizenship as a consequence of voting in a foreign election.
United States citizenship can be acquired by birthright in two situations: by virtue of the person's birth within United States territory or because one or both of their parents is a US citizen. Birthright citizenship contrasts with citizenship acquired in other ways, for example by naturalization.
Philippine nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of the Philippines. The two primary pieces of legislation governing these requirements are the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines and the 1939 Revised Naturalization Law.
Renunciation of citizenship is the voluntary loss of citizenship. It is the opposite of naturalization, whereby a person voluntarily obtains citizenship. It is distinct from denaturalization, where citizenship is revoked by the state.
The Citizenship Clause is the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was adopted on July 9, 1868, which states:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Puerto Rico is an island in the Caribbean region in which inhabitants were Spanish nationals from 1508 until the Spanish–American War in 1898, from which point they derived their nationality from United States law. Nationality is the legal means in which inhabitants acquire formal membership in a nation without regard to its governance type. In addition to being United States nationals, persons are citizens of the United States and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico within the context of United States Citizenship. Miriam J. Ramirez de Ferrer v. Juan Mari Brás. Citizenship, the rights and obligations that each owes the other, once one has become a member of a nation. Though the Constitution of the United States recognizes both national and state citizenship as a means of accessing rights, Puerto Rico's history as a territory has created both confusion over the status of its nationals and citizens and controversy because of distinctions between jurisdictions of the United States. These differences have created what political scientist Charles R. Venator-Santiago has called "separate and unequal" statuses.
Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States, such as freedom of expression, due process, the rights to vote, live and work in the United States, and to receive federal assistance.
Multiple/dual citizenship is a person's legal status in which the person is at the one time recognized by more than one country under its nationality and citizenship law as a national or citizen of that country. There is no international convention which determines the nationality or citizenship status of a person, which is consequently determined exclusively under national laws, that often conflict with each other, thus allowing for multiple citizenship situations to arise.
The Expatriation Act of 1907 was an act of the 59th United States Congress concerning retention and relinquishment of United States nationality by married women and Americans residing abroad. It effectively functioned as Congressional endorsement of the various ad hoc rulings on loss of United States nationality that had been made by the State Department since the enactment of the Expatriation Act of 1868. Some sections of it were repealed by other acts in the early 1920s; those sections which remained were codified at 8 U.S.C. §§ 6–17, but those too were repealed by the Nationality Act of 1940 when the question of dual citizenship arose.
The Renunciation Act of 1944 was an act of the 78th Congress regarding the renunciation of United States citizenship. Prior to the law's passage, it was not possible to lose U.S. citizenship while in U.S. territory except by conviction for treason; the Renunciation Act allowed people physically present in the U.S. to renounce citizenship when the country was in a state of war by making an application to the Attorney General. The intention of the 1944 Act was to encourage Japanese American internees to renounce citizenship so that they could be deported to Japan.
An accidental American is someone whom US law deems to be an American citizen, but who has only a tenuous connection with that country. For example, American nationality law provides that anyone born on US territory is a US citizen, including those who leave as infants or young children, even if neither parent is a US citizen. US law also ascribes American citizenship to some children born abroad to a US citizen parent, even if those children never enter the United States. Since the early 2000s, the term "accidental American" has been adopted by several activist groups to protest tax treaties and Inter-Governmental Agreements which treat such people as American citizens who are therefore potentially subject to tax and financial reporting requirements – requirements which few other countries impose on their nonresident citizens. Accidental Americans may be unaware of these requirements, or their US citizen status, until they encounter problems accessing bank services in their home countries, for example, or are barred from entering the US on a non-US passport. Furthermore, the US State Department now charges USD 2350 to renounce citizenship, while tax reporting requirements associated with legal expatriation may pose additional financial burdens.
Under United States federal law, a U.S. citizen or national may voluntarily and intentionally give up that status and become an alien with respect to the United States. Relinquishment is distinct from denaturalization, which in U.S. law refers solely to cancellation of illegally procured naturalization.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
