Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/322/665/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 08:18:42
Document Index: 369706562

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 338', '§ 738', '§ 8', '§ 334', '§ 338', '§ 15', '§ 405', '§ 338', '§ 738']

BAUMGARTNER V. UNITED STATES, 322 U. S. 665 - Volume 322 - 1944 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
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BAUMGARTNER V. UNITED STATES, 322 U. S. 665 (1944)
order admitting Baumgartner to citizenship and issued a certificate of naturalization to him. Almost ten years later, on August 21, 1942, the United States brought this suit under § 338 of the Nationality Act of 1940 (54 Stat. 1137, 1158, 8 U.S.C. § 738) to set aside the naturalization decree and cancel the certificate. [Footnote 1] The District Court entered a decree for the Government, 47 F.Supp. 622, which the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, with one judge dissenting, affirmed. 138 F.2d 29. We brought the case here because it raises important issues in the proper administration of the law affecting naturalized citizens. 321 U.S. 756.
There was testimony that, in 1933 or 1934, Mrs. Baumgartner's mother visited this country, and that, after this visit, Baumgartner, beginning in 1934, "praised the work that Hitler was doing over there in bringing Germany back, on repeated occasions." Evidence of statements made by Baumgartner over a period of about seven years beginning in 1933 indicated oft-repeated admiration for the Nazi Government, comparisons between President Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler which led to conclusions that this country would be better off if run as Hitler ran Germany, "that regimentation, as the Nazis, formed it [sic] was superior to the democracy," and that "the democracy of the United States was a practical farce." One witness of German extraction testified that Baumgartner told him he was "a traitor to my country" because of the witness' condemnation of Hitler. Baumgartner made public speeches on at least three occasions before businessmen's groups, clubs, and the like in which he told of the accomplishments of the Nazi Government and indicated that "he would be glad to live under the regime of Hitler."
There was testimony that Baumgartner justified the German invasions in the late 1930's, and announced, when Dunkerque fell, that "Today I am rejoicing." One witness testified that Baumgartner told him that he "belonged to an order called the so-called Bund,'" and the diary which Baumgartner kept from December 1, 1938, to the summer of 1941 reveals that he attended a meeting of the German Vocational League where the German national anthem was sung and "everyone naturally arose and assumed the usual German stance with the arm extended to give the National Socialist greeting." Other diary entries reflect violent anti-semitism, impatience at the lack of pro-German militancy of German-Americans, and approval of Germans who have not "been Americanized, that is, ruined." [Footnote 2] Finally, Baumgartner replied in the
That the concurrent findings of two lower courts are persuasive proof in support of their judgments is a rule of wisdom in judicial administration. In reaffirming its importance, we mean to pay more than lip service. But the rule does not relieve us of the task of examining the foundation for findings in a particular case. The measure of proof requisite to denaturalize a citizen was before this Court in Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118. It was there held that proof to bring about a loss of citizenship must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot escape the conviction that the case made out by the Government lacks that solidity of proof which leaves no troubling doubt in deciding a question of such gravity as is implied in an attempt to reduce a person to the status of alien from that of citizen.
of a "finding of fact" depends on the nature of the materials on which the finding is based. The finding even of a so-called "subsidiary fact" may be a more or less difficult process varying according to the simplicity or subtlety of the type of "fact" in controversy. Finding so-called ultimate "facts" more clearly implies the application of standards of law. And so the "finding of fact," even if made by two courts, may go beyond the determination that should not be set aside here. Though labeled "finding of fact," it may involve the very basis on which judgment of fallible evidence is to be made. Thus, the conclusion that may appropriately be drawn from the whole mass of evidence is not always the ascertainment of the kind of "fact" that precludes consideration by this Court. See, e.g., Beyer v. LeFevre, 186 U. S. 114. Particularly is this so where a decision here for review cannot escape broadly social judgments -- judgments lying close to opinion regarding the whole nature of our Government and the duties and immunities of citizenship. Deference properly due to the findings of a lower court does not preclude the review here of such judgments. This recognized scope of appellate review is usually differentiated from review of ordinary questions of fact by being called review of a question of law, but that is often not an illuminating test, and is never self-executing. Suffice it to say that emphasis on the importance of "clear, unequivocal, and convincing" proof, see Schneiderman v. United States, supra, 320 U. S. 125, on which to rest the cancellation of a certificate of naturalization would be lost if the ascertainment by the lower courts whether that exacting standard of proof had been satisfied on the whole record were to be deemed a "fact" of the same order as all other "facts" not open to review here.
We come, then, to a consideration of the evidence in the context in which that evidence is to be judged. Congress alone has been entrusted by the Constitution with the power to give or withhold naturalization, and, to that end, "to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization." Art. I, § 8, Clause 4. In exercising its power, Congress has authorized the courts to grant American citizenship only if the alien has satisfied the conditions imposed by Congress for naturalization. There is no "right to naturalization unless all statutory requirements are complied with." United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U. S. 472, 243 U. S. 475. And so, "[i]f a certificate is procured when the prescribed qualifications have no existence in fact, it may be canceled by suit." Tutun v. United States, 270 U. S. 568, 270 U. S. 578. From the earliest days of the Republic, Congress has required as a condition of citizenship that the alien renounce his foreign allegiance and swear allegiance to this country and its Constitution. Act of January 29, 1795, 1 Stat. 414. By this requirement, Congress has not used meaningless words. Nor, on the other hand, has it thereby expressed a narrow test or formula susceptible of almost mechanical proof, as is true of other prerequisites for
naturalization -- period of residence, documentation of arrival, requisite number of sponsoring witnesses, and the like. Allegiance to this Government and its laws is a compendious phrase to describe those political and legal institutions that are the enduring features of American political society. We are here dealing with a test expressing a broad conception -- a breadth appropriate to the nature of the subject matter, being nothing less than the bonds that tie Americans together in devotion to a common fealty. The spacious scope of this conception was expressed by this Court in stating that the Constitution "was made for an undefined and expanding future, and for a people gathered, and to be gathered, from many nations and of many tongues," Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 110 U. S. 530-531, and, again,
Missouri v. Holland, 252 U. S. 416, 252 U. S. 433.
To ascertain fulfillment of a test implying so expansive a reach presents difficult and doubtful problems even for judges presumably well trained in the meaning of our country's institutions and their demands from its citizens. "Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency." Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9, 231 U. S. 22. One of the prerogatives of
Forswearing past political allegiance without reservation and full assumption of the obligations of American citizenship are not at all inconsistent with cultural feelings imbedded in childhood and youth. [Footnote 3] And during a period when new strength of the land of one's nativity was flamboyantly exploited before its full sinister meaning had been adequately revealed even to some Americans of the oldest lineage, such old cultural loyalty, it is well
The denial of application for citizenship because the judicial mind has not been satisfied that the test of allegiance has been met presents a problem very different from the revocation of the naturalization certificate once admission to the community of American citizenship has been decreed. No doubt the statutory procedure for naturalization (§ 334, Nationality Act of 1940), and § 338, with which we are here concerned, "were designed to afford cumulative protection against fraudulent or illegal naturalization." United States v. Ness, 245 U. S. 319, 245 U. S. 327. But relaxation in the vigor appropriate for scrutinizing the intensity of the allegiance to this country embraced by an applicant before admitting him to citizenship is not to be corrected by meagre standards for disproving such allegiance retrospectively. New relations and new interests flow once citizenship has been granted. All that should not be undone unless the proof is compelling that that which was granted was obtained in defiance of Congressional authority. Nonfulfillment of specific conditions, like time of residence or the required number of supporting witnesses, are easily established, and, when established, leave no room for discretion, because Congress has left no area of discretion. But, where the claim of "illegality" really involves issues of belief or fraud, proof is treacherous, and objective judgment, even by the most disciplined minds, precarious. That is why denaturalization on this score calls for weighty proof, especially when the proof of a false or fraudulent oath rests predominantly not upon contemporaneous evidence, but is established by later expressions of opinion argumentatively projected, and often through the distorting and self-deluding medium of memory, to an earlier year when qualifications for citizenship were claimed, tested and adjudicated.
The issue in this case is clear. The Government has sought to set aside petitioner's naturalization certificate because of alleged fraudulent and illegal procurement. It was thus incumbent on the Government to meet the standard of proof laid down by this Court in Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, 320 U. S. 125, 320 U. S. 158, by presenting evidence of a "clear, unequivocal, and convincing" character which did not leave "the issue in doubt" as to whether petitioner fraudulently or illegally procured his certificate.
* The denaturalization proceeding in the Schneiderman case was brought under the provisions of § 15 of the Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 596, 8 U.S.C. § 405. Practically identical provisions are contained in § 338 of the Nationality Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 1137, 1158, 8 U.S.C. § 738, under which the proceeding in the instant case was instituted. See Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 121, note 1.
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