Court Opinion

ID: 9447805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:45:10.229072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:12.195038
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Cannon’s petition for naturalization sets forth that, as a result of application in the fall of 1952 for exemption as an alien, he was “relieved from military service until November 8, 1954” by being classified IV-C; that in May, 1953, he again requested exemption on a form *272reciting he had read § 315 of the Immigration & Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C.A. § 1426(a), which states that any alien who makes an application for exemption on the ground of alienage “and is or was relieved or discharged from such training or service on such ground, shall be permanently ineligible to become a citizen of the United States”; and that he was then continued in Class IV-C. No one disputes this brought down the statutory bar to citizenship; but Cannon urges, and my brothers agree, that he could raise it, provided only the Local Board took advantage of his offer. I do not so read the statute or the decisions.
In common speech “relieve” has the connotation of temporary, not necessarily permanent, surcease. The dictionary, a source not always to be disregarded, says that “relieve” means, among other things, “To free, wholly or partly, from any burden, trial, evil, distress, or the like”; “To release from a post, station, or duty”; or “To set free from an obligation.” Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2d ed. 1860. That is precisely what Cannon’s applications and the Local Board’s actions did, and the statute prescribes permanent ineligibility for citizenship as the consequence. Admittedly Cannon would have remained “relieved” if he had not opted no longer to be. He was free to make that decision, and it may have been laudable for him to do so, but this did not obliterate the consequences of the past.
Ceballos v. Shaughnessy, 1957, 352 U.S. 599, 606, 77 S.Ct. 545, 549, 1 L.Ed.2d 583 does not assist petitioner. Although the opinion said that § 315 of the 1952 Act “enacts a two-pronged requirement” of application and relief or discharge, in contrast to the single pronged requirement of § 3(a) of the 1940 Act, quoted in 352 U.S. at page 601, footnote 6, 77 S.Ct. at page 547, it did not attempt to define the second prong. United States v. Hoellger, 2 Cir., 1960, 273 F.2d 760, rested on the ground that, because of the Government’s abrogating the treaty with Germany under which Hoellger had claimed exemption and thereafter inducting him, presumably against his will, he was not “effectively relieved from service,” 273 F.2d at page 762, or, in Judge Moore’s words, at page 766, the Government “took away the consideration for the original bargain.” Here the Government was willing to abide by the bargain; it was Cannon who no longer insisted on it. To be sure, there may be considerations that would favor, just as there are others that would oppose, rewarding a repentant alien with a renewal of his eligibility for citizenship. However, the words used by Congress went only so far as to say that mere application for exemption was no longer to debar him from citizenship unless followed by relief or discharge; and conditions in 1952 made it peculiarly unlikely that Congress would have given an alien an option to remain out of the armed forces so long as it suited him and then to regain opportunity for citizenship by subsequent change of mind.
I would affirm.