Court Opinion

ID: 9653422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:46:32.311838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:59.089711
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
The government has filed a petition for rehearing in which it is earnestly' contended that our previous opinion erroneously construed § 401(c) of the Nationality Act of 1940, 8 U.S.C.A. § 8011(c). However, the petition does not point to any error in our detailed recital of the legislative history; nor does it'bring to light any significant matter overlooked by us. Upon full reconsideration, we conclude that we should adhere to our previously expressed view.
In footnote 2 to our opinion, we quoted part of the explanatory comment by the Cabinet committee upon proviso (2) to § 401 of the draft code to the effect that no national under 18 years of age can expatriate himself under subsections (b) to (h) inclusive. The quoted portion of the comment was as follows:
“The reasons for adopting this provision are obvious. It does not seem reasonable that an immature person should be able to expatriate himself by any act of his own. * * * It will be observed that in this subsection the age below which a person cannot expatriate himself is set at 18 years, instead of 21 years. It is believed that a person who has reached the age of 18 years should be able to appreciate fully the seriousness of any act of expatriation on his part. * * * ”
It is pointed out by the government that we omitted to quote, the concluding sentence of the comment:
“Moreover, in time of war, young men are frequently accepted for military service before they have reached the age of 21 years, and, under the laws of some foreign countries, males become liable for the performance of involuntary military service when they reach the age of 18 years."
*867The suggestion apparently is that this concluding sentence in the comment indicates an intention on the part of the Cabinet committee that, under § 401(c) of the draft code, a national over 18 years of age should lose his citizenship by service in a foreign army, whether such service is voluntary or involuntary. The trouble with this suggestion is that it is flatly contradictory to the explicit comment of the Cabinet committee upon § 401(c) of the draft code. The Cabinet committee stated that § 401(c) was based upon the theory that an American national who, after reaching the age of majority, ‘‘volimtcurily enters, or continues to serve in, the army of a foreign state, thus offering his all in support of such state, should be deemed to have transferred his allegiance to it.” (Italics added.)
There is not the slightest doubt that, during the course of the hearings before the House committee, the language in § 401(c) of the draft code, “Entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state”, was understood to refer only to voluntary service. The very language of the amendment which Mr. Flournoy of the State Department unsuccessfully urged the House committee to adopt was based upon this assumption. He proposed that a proviso be added to subsection (c) to the effect that, if a person who has acquired American nationality at birth also has the nationality of a foreign state, “his entry into the armed forces of such foreign state shall be conclusively presumed to be voluntary.” This phraseology in terms of a conclusive presumption is explicable only on the assumption that the language of § 401(c), except in the case covered by the suggested proviso, referred only to voluntary induction. Mr. Flournoy repeatedly urged his proposal during the course of the House hearings. The proposal, however, was opposed by the Labor Department, whose representative at the hearing maintained that, in all cases, an American citizen, whether or not some other country also had a claim to his allegiance, should be permitted to establish that his service in the foreign army was in fact not voluntary. The committee declined to adopt Mr. Flournoy’s amendment. Though there is no reference in the House committee report to this conflict of view between the two departments, we can only infer that the Labor Department’s view prevailed with the committee. The bill as it passed the House contained § 401(c) just as it appeared in the draft code submitted by the Cabinet committee, without any amendment. As explained at length in our opinion, the phrase in § 401(c) of the bill as it passed the House, “Entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state”, undoubtedly was not intended to cover a case of involuntary conscription into a foreign army.
Mr. Flournoy did not succeed in getting the House to provide that an American citizen of dual nationality should automatically lose his American citizenship by service in the armed forces of the other country, even though such service was under duress. Did he succeed any better with the Senate? In our previous opinion we traced the subsequent history of the bill, in the Senate committee, on the floor of the Senate, in the conference report, and in the action by the two Houses on the report of the conference committee. The Senate added to § 401 (c) of the House bill the phrase “if he has or acquires the nationality of such foreign state”, thus limiting the applicability of the subsection to dual nationality cases only. But the Senate left unchanged the introductory phrase, “Entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state”. The government’s argument comes to this: that the connotation of this phrase which it undoubtedly had in the bill as it passed the House somehow became enlarged so as to cover cases of involuntary as well as voluntary induction as a result of the Senate amendment which, on its face, did no more than narrow the applicability of § 401(c). If such was the purpose of the Senate amendment, if Mr. Flournoy succeeded in persuading the Senate where he had failed to persuade the House, it is indeed surprising that no reference to any such significant change can be found in the Senate report, in the discussion on the Senate floor when the Senate committee amendments were put to a vote, in the conference report, or in the discussion on the *868floor of the House when the report of the conference committee was adopted.
The government urges that we failed to apprehend the significance of the Senate amendment adding a new subsection (c) to § 317, 8 U.S.C.A. § 717(c), so as to provide that a person who loses his citizenship under the provision of § 401(c) might regain such citizenship by an accelerated and simplified naturalization procedure. It points out that if an American citizen loses his citizenship under § 401(b) by taking an oath or making other formal / declaration of allegiance to a foreign state, or if he loses his citizenship under § 401(d) by accepting employment under the government of a foreign state of a sort for which only nationals of such state are eligible, such expatriated person-must start from scratch as an alien and come to the United States only under the quota of the foreign country and, after admission to the United States, wait the usual five years before achieving naturalization. Therefore, the argument runs, there would be no point in the provision of § 317(c) affording an accelerated naturalization procedure to persons who lost their citizenship under § 401(c) “except to provide for those who lost their citizenship by serving in the armed forces of a foreign state involuntarily.” . This argument overlooks the fact that, under § 401(c), an American national who is also a national of a foreign state undoubtedly loses his American citizenship by voluntary enlistment in the armed forces of such foreign state. Yet, under § 317(c), such a person obtains the benefit of the simplified naturalization procedure in consequence of § 317(c). Why the Congress chose to afford this boon to a person who did a voluntary act of expatriation under § 401(c), and not to a person who did a voluntary act of expatriation under § 401(b) or § 401(d), is nowhere explained in the legislative history of the Act.
In footnote 5 of our previous opinion, we noted the point that the government had not relied on § 402, 8 U.S. C.A. § 802, as lending any support to its contention that Camara had lost his citizenship. That section provides that a national of the United’ States who was born in the United States “shall be presumed to have expatriated himself under subsection (c) or (d) of section 401, when he shall remain for six months or longer within any foreign state of which he or either of his parents shall have been a national according to the laws of such foreign state, * * * and such presumption shall exist until overcome whether or not the individual has returned to the United States.” The government now urges, in its petition for rehearing, that Camara’s “expatriation became absolute under Section 402 because he entered the foreign army, thereby expatriating himself under subsection (c), and consequently is not in a position to overcome the presumption by proof that he did not serve in the foreign army.” This argument obviously begs the question whether § 401(c) is applicable to a case of involuntary conscription into the foreign army. Section 402 creates only a rebuttable presumption, and it does not enlarge the content of § 401(c). Furthermore, the language of § 402 — “shall be presumed to have expatriated himself under subsection (c) or (d) of section 401” — furnishes strong support for our interpretation of § 401(c). To “expatriate” oneself clearly implies voluntary action. “Expatriation is the voluntary renunciation or abandonment of nationality and allegiance.” Perkins v. Elg, 1939, 307 U.S. 325, 334, 59 S.Ct. 884, 889, 83 L.Ed. 1320. In this case Camara certainly overcame any presumption that he had voluntarily renounced or abandoned his American nationality and allegiance.
Giving full weight to the government’s contentions, it certainly cannot be said that the interpretation of § 401(c) urged by the government is the only permissible one in view of the statutory language in the context of its legislative history. We repeat the admonition of Perkins v. Elg, supra, at page 337 of 307 U.S., at page 891 of 59 S.Ct., 83 L.Ed. 1320: “Rights of citizenship are not to be destroyed by an ambiguity.” The interpretation we have been constrained to adopt avoids the necessity of passing on the pow*869er of Congress to deprive a native-born American citizen of bis nationality under the circumstances here presented.
The petition for rehearing is denied.