Opinion ID: 1037059
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The naturalization of both

Text: 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 Ch. 876 § 314, 54 Stat. 1137, 1145-46 (repealed 1952).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 See INA § 321(a)(5), ch. 477, 66 Stat. 163, 245 (1952) (codified as amended at 8 U.S.C. § 1432(a)(5) (1994)) (repealed 2000).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.