Opinion ID: 573887
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Expatriation

Text: 9 At the time the complaint was filed in 1983, the relevant federal expatriation statute provided that: 10 A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts ... (1) obtaining naturalization in a foreign state upon his own application ... (2) taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state ... (5) making a formal renunciation of nationality before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in a foreign state ... 11 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a) (1982) (amended 1986). Under the statute, loss of American citizenship required a voluntary performance of an expatriating act. The Supreme Court, in Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U.S. 252, 100 S.Ct. 540, 62 L.Ed.2d 461 (1980), added an additional element, namely a specific intent to relinquish United States citizenship. See also Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253, 87 S.Ct. 1660, 18 L.Ed.2d 757 (1967). Rich committed a voluntary act of expatriation by taking an oath of allegiance to Spain and renouncing his American citizenship. We must now determine whether the district court was correct in finding that Rich did not have the necessary intent to expatriate himself. 12 Rich contends that his acts of expatriation conclusively establish intent to relinquish United States citizenship. We disagree. Although the Supreme Court stated that any of the expatriating acts enumerated in the statute  'may be highly persuasive evidence ... of a purpose to abandon citizenship,'  Terrazas, 444 U.S. at 261, 100 S.Ct. at 546 (quoting Nishikawa v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 129, 139, 78 S.Ct. 612, 618, 2 L.Ed.2d 659 (1958) (Black, J., concurring)), the Court noted that the trier of fact must in the end conclude that the citizen not only voluntarily committed the expatriating act prescribed in the statute, but also intended to relinquish his citizenship. Terrazas, 444 U.S. at 261, 100 S.Ct. at 546. See Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253, 87 S.Ct. 1660, 18 L.Ed.2d 757 (1967). 13 We have long required a distinct manifestation of intent in addition to the mere performance of an expatriating act. As we noted in United States v. Matheson, 532 F.2d 809, 814 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 823, 97 S.Ct. 75, 50 L.Ed.2d 85 (1976), there must be proof of a specific intent to relinquish United States citizenship before an act of foreign naturalization or oath of loyalty to another sovereign can result in the expatriation of an American citizen. See also Richards v. Secretary of State, 752 F.2d 1413, 1420 (9th Cir.1985) (In the absence of such an intent [to relinquish citizenship, a United States citizen] does not lose his citizenship simply by performing an expatriating act, even if he knows that Congress has designated the act an expatriating act.) 14 The evidence strongly supports the district court's finding that Rich had no intention whatsoever to relinquish his American citizenship prior to commencement of this action. Despite mouthing words of renunciation before a Spanish official, he refused to acknowledge such renunciation before the United States Consul in Madrid before this action commenced. Instead, he brought a Swiss action as an American national, travelled on his American passport, and publicized himself in a commercial register as a United States citizen.