Opinion ID: 1037059
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Derivative Citizenship Laws

Text: The first statute allowing foreign-born children to derive citizenship from their parents' naturalization -17- was enacted as part of the Naturalization Act of 1790. See Ch. 3 § 1, 1 Stat. 103, 104. This provision, amended slightly by subsequent Naturalization Acts, was eventually codified as section 2172 of the Revised Statutes of the United States: The children of persons who have been duly naturalized under any law of the United States, . . . being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of the naturalization of their parents, shall, if dwelling in the United States, be considered as citizens thereof . . . . Rev. Stat. § 2172 (repealed 1940)(emphasis added), quoted in United States ex rel. Patton v. Tod, 297 F. 385, 387 (2d Cir. 1924); see also Zartarian v. Billings, 204 U.S. 170, 173-74 (1907) (noting section 2172 was largely unchanged since the 1790s). For more than a century, the derivative citizenship statute simply required that the foreign child be dwelling within the United States, but did not explicitly require that such dwelling be permanent or even lawful. Indeed, at the time of its original enactment, there were no federal immigration laws with which aliens had to comply. See Patton, 297 F. at 394. -18- Based on the plain language of section 2172, it became well-established that a foreign-born child dwelling within the United States at the time her parents were naturalized automatically became a citizen. See id. at 389-90. It was also generally presumed that section 2172 granted citizenship to children who were living abroad at the time their parents were naturalized and later began dwelling in the United States, but the statutory language was ambiguous in this regard. See id. at 390-92; Charles Gordon et al., 7 Immigration Law & Procedure § 98.03[3][f] (rev. ed. 2013). It was unclear when these children had to begin dwelling in the United States and when they would be deemed citizens. See Zartarian, 204 U.S. at 174 (noting that section 2172 raised these questions, but they were not before the Court). To clarify these issues, Congress enacted section 5 of the Citizenship Act of 1907 (the 1907 Act), which provided: [A] child born without the United States of alien parents shall be deemed a citizen of the United States by virtue of the naturalization of . . . the parent: Provided, That such naturalization -19- or resumption takes place during the minority of such child; And provided further, That the citizenship of such minor child shall begin at the time such minor child begins to reside permanently in the United States. Ch. 2534 § 5, 34 Stat. 1228, 1229 (repealed 1940); see also Patton, 297 F. at 392-93. Thus, the reside permanently requirement was first introduced in section 5 of the 1907 Act; section 2172, until it was repealed in 1940, continued to require merely dwelling in the United States. Moreover, neither statute used the term lawful. 6 6 Several cases from this era construed both Rev. Stat. § 2172 and section 5 of the 1907 Act as requiring that the alien child have legally landed in the United States before they could be deemed to be dwelling or resid[ing] permanently here. Kaplan v. Tod, 267 U.S. 228, 230 (1925); Zartarian, 204 U.S. at 175; United States ex rel. Patton, 297 F. at 394. Each of these cases involved a child who was expressly excluded from admission because she was carrying a contagious disease, see Zartarian, 204 U.S. at 172-73, was feeble minded, Kaplan, 267 U.S. at 229, or was an imbecile, Patton, 297 F. at 388. This Court has previously determined that these outdated cases are unhelpful in interpreting section 321 of the INA. See Ashton, 431 F.3d at 98-99. In any event, this case, as in Ashton, is distinguishable because Nwozuzu was admitted legally into the United States . . . and until he was convicted of [his crimes], he did not belong to a class of persons categorically forbidden from immigrating. Id. at 99. Therefore, we need not consider whether the reside permanently clause in section 321 carries an implicit lawful entry requirement. -20- Because of the ambiguity surrounding Rev. Stat. § 2172, courts construed that provision and section 5 of the 1907 Act as addressing two separate situations: Under R.S.U.S. Sec. 2172, a foreign- born minor child dwelling in the United States at the time of the naturalization of the parent automatically becomes an American citizen. Under section 5 of the Act of March 2, 1907, a foreign-born child, not in the United States when the parent is naturalized, becomes a citizen only from such time as, while still a minor, it begins to reside permanently in the United States. Patton, 297 F. at 393; see also Gordon, supra, § 98.03[2] (Although it dealt with the same subject matter as section 2172 of the Revised Statutes, the 1907 Act used variant terminology and did not mention, modify, or repeal the former statute.). Congress finally combined these two separate provisions into section 314 of the Nationality Act of 1940: A child born outside of alien parents, . . . becomes a citizen of the United States upon fulfillment of the following conditions: -21-
parents; . . . . . . and (e) Such child is residing in the United States at the time of the naturalization of the parent last naturalized under subsection (a) . . . or thereafter begins to reside permanently in the United States while under the age of eighteen years. Ch. 876 § 314, 54 Stat. 1137, 1145-46 (repealed 1952). Because there was no longer any ambiguity making it necessary to distinguish between children present at the time of their parents' naturalization and those who arrived afterwards, Congress could have simply imposed a single requirement of permanent residency beginning while the child was still a minor. Instead, it retained the dual clause framework: children could either resid[e] in the United States at the time their parents were naturalized, or they could later reside permanently so long as they began doing so while still a minor. Congress maintained this dual framework when it passed section 321 of the Immigration and Nationality Act -22- of 1952, which added the lawful permanent residency requirement. See INA § 321(a)(5), ch. 477, 66 Stat. 163, 245 (1952) (codified as amended at 8 U.S.C. § 1432(a)(5) (1994)) (repealed 2000). Importantly, Congress altered only the first clause of section 314(e) of the 1940 Act, changing the bare phrase residing in the United States to residing . . . pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence. Id. Congress did not, however, significantly alter the second clause, letting stand the requirement that an alien child need only begin[] to reside permanently in the United States while still a minor. See id. According to the House Report accompanying the INA, the term lawfully admitted for permanent residence was a new term of art carrying especial significance because of its application to numerous provisions of the bill. H.R. Rep. No. 82-1365 (1952), reprinted in 1952 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1653, 1684. Therefore, when Congress used that term -- in both the text of the statute and in the House Report's discussion of section 321 -- only in -23- reference to residency at the time of the parents' naturalization and not in reference to residency beginning thereafter, we must presume that it did so deliberately. See INA § 321(a)(5); H.R. Rep. No. 82-1365, reprinted in 1952 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 1739-40. Given the especial significance of that term, we cannot assume Congress intended the phrase reside permanently -- which had been carried over, unaltered, from previous statutes since 1907 -- to be shorthand for the new term of art. We reasonably conclude from this history that Congress intended the two clauses, which had always used different terms and functioned separately, to continue to have different meanings. See Sosa, 542 U.S. at 711 n.9. Indeed, there is a logical reason for requiring lawful permanent residence at the time of naturalization but only permanent residence thereafter: derivative citizenship is granted automatically. See INA § 321 (entitled Child Born Outside of United States of Alien Parent; Conditions Under Which Citizenship Automatically Acquired (emphasis added)). Requiring lawful admission -24- for permanent residence at the time of the parents' naturalization provided an administratively convenient way of determining which children intended to remain with their parents and thus would become citizens at the time their parents were naturalized. Imposing such a requirement on minor children either living abroad or residing temporarily in the United States at the time of their parents' naturalization made little sense. Because their parents had already become citizens, children in this situation automatically acquired citizenship once they were residing in the United States and demonstrated their objective intent to remain permanently. Requiring them to obtain lawful admission for permanent residence would have been a meaningless formality because these children did not require lawful permanent resident status. It also would have unnecessarily delayed their entry into the country, making it difficult to begin to reside permanently in the United States while under the age of eighteen years and jeopardizing their chances of deriving citizenship from -25- their parents. 8 U.S.C. § 1432(a)(5) (1994). Congress clearly intended a different result: Congress enacted the derivative citizenship statute to ensure that alien children whose real interests were located in America with their custodial parent, and not abroad, should be automatically naturalized. Duarte-Ceri v. Holder, 630 F.3d 83, 89-90 (2d Cir. 2010) (quoting Bustamante-Barrera v. Gonzalez, 447 F.3d 388, 397 (5th Cir. 2006)). To be sure, obtaining lawful admission for permanent residence remained the most certain way of proving the objective intent to reside permanently, see Ashton, 431 F.3d at 99, but it was not the only way to carry this burden.