Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/377/163/
Timestamp: 2017-04-28 00:52:06
Document Index: 440633759

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 352', '§ 301', '§ 352', '§ 352', '§ 1484', '§ 352', '§ 352', '§ 352', '§ 352', '§ 352', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 3', '§ 352']

Schneider v. Rusk | LII / Legal Information Institute
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Argued: April 2, 1964
Held by a majority of this Court, that § 352(a)(1) is discriminatory, and therefore violative of due process under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, since no restriction against the length of foreign residence applies to native-born citizens, though some members of that majority believe that Congress lacks constitutional power to effect involuntary divestiture of citizenship. Pp. 164-169.
(1) having a continuous residence for three years in the territory of a foreign state of which he was formerly a national or in which the place of his birth is situated, except as provided in section 353 of this title,
whether such residence commenced before or after the effective date of this Act. . . .
Appellant, a German national by birth, came to this country with her parents when a small child, acquired derivative American citizenship at the age of 16 through her mother, and, after graduating from Smith College, went abroad for postgraduate work. In 1956, while in France, she became engaged to a German national, returned here briefly, and departed for Germany, where she married and where she has resided ever since. Since her marriage, she has returned to this country on two occasions for visits. Her husband is a lawyer in Cologne, where appellant has been living. Two of her four sons, born in Germany, are dual nationals, having acquired American citizenship under § 301(a)(7) of the 1952 Act. The American citizenship of the other two turns on this case. In 1959, the United States denied her a passport, the State Department certifying that she had lost her American citizenship under § 352(a)(1), quoted above. Appellant sued for a declaratory judgment that she still is an American citizen. The District Court held against her, 218 F.Supp. [p165]
302, and the case is here on appeal.
375 U.S. 893.
356 U.S. at 60. [p167]
In Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, supra, a divided Court held that it was beyond the power of Congress to deprive an American of his citizenship automatically and without any prior judicial or administrative proceedings because he left the United States in time of war to evade or avoid training or service in the Armed Forces. The Court held that it was an unconstitutional use of [p168]
congressional power because it took away citizenship as punishment for the offense of remaining outside the country to avoid military service without, at the same time, affording him the procedural safeguards granted by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Yet even the dissenters, who felt that flight or absence to evade the duty of helping to defend the country in time of war amounted to manifest nonallegiance, made a reservation. JUSTICE STEWART stated: Previous decisions have suggested that congressional exercise of the power to expatriate may be subject to a further constitutional restriction -- a limitation upon the kind of activity which may be made the basis of denationalization. Withdrawal of citizenship is a drastic measure. Moreover, the power to expatriate endows government with authority to define and to limit the society which it represents and to which it is responsible.
This statute proceeds on the impermissible assumption that naturalized citizens as a class are less reliable, and bear less allegiance to this country than do the native born. This is an assumption that is impossible for us to make. Moreover, while the Fifth Amendment contains no equal protection clause, it does forbid discrimination that is "so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process." Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499. A native-born citizen is free to reside abroad indefinitely without suffering loss of citizenship. The discrimination aimed at naturalized citizens drastically limits their rights to live [p169]
I, too, sympathize with the appellant for the dilemma in which she has placed herself through her marriage to a foreign citizen. But the policy of our country is involved here, not just her personal consideration. I cannot say that Congress made her a second-class citizen by enacting § 352(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 269, 8 U.S.C. § 1484 placing a "badge of lack of allegiance" upon her because she chose to live permanently abroad in her native land. If there is such a citizenship or badge, appellant, not the Congress, created it through her own actions. All that Congress did was face up to problems of the highest national importance by authorizing expatriation, the only adequate remedy. Appellant, with her eyes open to the result, chose by her action to renounce her derivative citizenship. Our cases have so interpreted such action for half [p170]
a century. Mackenzie v. Hare, 239 U.S. 299 (1915). As applied to her, I cannot say, as does the Court, that the command of Congress in § 352(a)(1) is discriminatory, and therefore violative of due process. Mackenzie decided just the contrary, upholding a statute which provided that, although an American male did not suffer loss of citizenship during marriage to a foreign citizen, an American woman did. Here, the appellant had statutory notice of the requirement; she voluntarily acted in disregard of it for eight years, intends to continue to do so, and, in my view, has therefore renounced her citizenship.
another clause ought to be added, depriving [naturalized] persons of the privilege of citizenship, who left the country and staid abroad for a given [p171]
The right to renounce citizenship acquired at birth was a serious question during the War of 1812. In 1814, the Government, through Secretary of State Monroe, circulated an anonymous pamphlet, A Treatise on Expatriation, which declared that "[e]xpatriation . . . is nothing more than emigration, with an intention to settle permanently abroad." At 21. Since that time, it has traditionally been our policy to withdraw diplomatic protection from naturalized citizens domiciled in their native states. See, e.g., letter from Secretary of State Adams to Shaler (1818), III Moore, Digest of International Law 735-736 (1906); letter from United States Minister to Prussia Wheaton to Knoche (1840), S.Exec.Doc. No. 38, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., 6-7; letter from Secretary of State Fish to Wing (1871), II Wharton, Digest of International Law of the United States 361-362 (2d ed. 1887); communication from Secretary of State Hay to American diplomats (1899), III Moore, supra, at 950. During all this period, the United States protected all citizens abroad except naturalized ones residing in their [p172]
7 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 3382 (Richardson ed. 1897). However, no legislation was enacted in the nineteenth century. In 1906, at the request of Congress, Secretary of State Elihu Root appointed a "citizenship board" to consider this and other related matters. The Board's report stated: Expressed renunciation of American citizenship is, however, extremely rare; but the class of Americans who separate themselves from the United States [p173]
and live within the jurisdiction of foreign countries is becoming larger every year, and the question of their protection causes increasing embarrassment to this Government in its relations with foreign powers.
This historical background points up the international difficulties which led to the adoption of the policy announced in § 352(a)(1). Residence of United States nationals abroad has always been the source of much international friction, and the ruling today will expand these difficulties tremendously. In 1962 alone, 919 persons were expatriated on the basis of residence in countries of former nationality. The action of the Court in voiding these expatriations will cause no end of difficulties, because thousands of persons living throughout the world will come under the broad sweep of the Court's [p174]
The decisions of this Court have consistently approved the power of Congress to enact statutes similar to the one here stricken down. Beginning with Mackenzie v. Hare, supra, where the Court sustained a statute suspending during coverture the citizenship of a native-born American woman who married a foreigner, the Court has invariably upheld expatriation when there is a concurrence on the part of the citizen. In Mackenzie, exactly the [p175]
same argument was made that appellant urges here. Indeed, the Court uses the same opinion in this case to strike down § 352(a)(1) as was urged in Mackenzie, namely, Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738 (1824), where Chief Justice Marshall remarked: "The constitution does not authorize Congress to enlarge or abridge . . . [the] rights" of citizens. At 827. But the Court in Mackenzie, without dissent on the merits, held: It may be conceded that a change of citizenship cannot be arbitrarily imposed, that is, imposed without the concurrence of the citizen. The law in controversy does not have that feature. It deals with a condition voluntarily entered into [marriage], with notice of the consequences. We concur with counsel that citizenship is of tangible worth, and we sympathize with plaintiff in her desire to retain it and in her earnest assertion of it. But there is involved more than personal considerations. As we have seen, the legislation was urged by conditions of national moment. . . . This is no arbitrary exercise of government. It is one which, regarding the international aspects, judicial opinion has taken for granted would not only be valid, but demanded.
as importing not only something less than complete and unswerving allegiance to the United States, but [p176]
also elements of an allegiance to another country in some measure, at least, inconsistent with American citizenship.
The Court bases its decision on the fact that § 352(a)(1) applies only to naturalized, not native-born, citizens. It says this results in a discrimination in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. I think that, in so doing, the Court overspeaks itself. If Congress has the power to expatriate all citizens, as the Court's position implies, it would certainly have like power to enact a more narrowly confined statute aimed only at those citizens whose presence in their native homelands can embroil the United States in conflict with such countries. As the history shows, the naturalized citizen who returns to his homeland is often the cause of the difficulties. This fact is recognized by the policy of this country and of 25 others, and by a United Nations Convention as well. Through § 352(a)(1), Congress has restricted its remedy to correction of the precise situations which have caused the problem. In adopting the classification "naturalized citizen," has the Congress acted with reason? Many times this Court has upheld classifications of more significance. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943) (curfew imposed on persons of Japanese ancestry, regardless of citizenship, in military areas during war); Heim v. McCall, 239 U.S. 175 (1915) (aliens not employable on public works projects); Terrace
v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197 (1923), and Porterfield v. Webb, 263 U.S. 225 (1923) (aliens who were ineligible for citizenship not permitted to hold land for farming or other purposes); Ohio ex rel. Clarke v. Deckebach, 274 U.S. 392 (1927) (aliens not permitted to conduct pool and billiard rooms). As in Mackenzie v. Hare, supra, these cases were sustained on the basis that the classification was reasonably devised to meet a demonstrated need. Distinctions between native-born and naturalized citizens in connection with foreign residence are drawn in the Constitution itself. Only a native-born may become President, Art. II, § 1. A naturalized citizen must wait seven years after he obtains his citizenship before he is eligible to sit in the House, Art. I, § 2. For the Senate, the waiting period is nine years, Art. I, § 3. Do these provisions create a second-class citizenship, or place a "badge of lack of allegiance" on those citizens? It has never been thought so until today. As I have shown, in the debate in the First Congress on the first naturalization bill, it was proposed to expatriate naturalized citizens who resided abroad. During the entire nineteenth century, only naturalized citizens were, as a general rule, expatriated on the grounds of foreign residence, and, for nearly 100 years, our naturalization treaties have contained provisions authorizing the expatriation of naturalized citizens residing in their native lands. Indeed, during the consideration of the 1952 Act, not a single witness specifically objected to § 352(a)(1). Even the Americans for Democratic Action suggested that it was a reasonable regulation. It is a little late for the Court to decide in the face of this mountain of evidence that the section has suddenly become so invidious that it must be stricken as arbitrary under the Due Process Clause.
Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144 (1963), is not apposite. There, expatriation for the offense of remaining outside the country to avoid military service [p178]