Court Opinion

ID: 9425454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:43.939795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.652454
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall concur,
dissenting.
The Court today summarily reverses the decision of the Court of Appeals, which found that the Government was estopped from denying citizenship to respondent under the Nationality Act of 1940.1 The Court reasons that estoppel is not even arguably applicable because there was no “affirmative misconduct” on the part of the United States; it implies that there were merely failures to “fully publicize” the rights given by the Act and “to have stationed in the Philippine Islands during all of the time those rights were available an authorized naturalization representative.” Failures of this kind could, perhaps, be excused if caused by the exigencies of war as long as good-faith efforts to carry out the provisions of the Act had been made.
But the Court ignores the record and the decisions below when it speaks only of these failures. In 1942, Congress amended the Nationality Act of 1940 to extend the benefits of citizenship to individuals who had fought in the Armed Forces of the United States during World War II, authorizing the appointment of naturalization *10officers to confer these benefits on noncitizens outside the jurisdiction of a naturalization court.2 Between 1943 and 1946, these officers traveled from post to post, through England, Iceland, North Africa, and the islands of the Pacific, naturalizing thousands of foreign nationals pursuant to the mandate of Congress.
The story in the Philippines was different. After the Japanese occupation of the Philippines ended, an American vice-consul was authorized to commence naturalization proceedings in 1945. Almost immediately thereafter, the Philippine Government expressed its concern about *11Filipino men leaving the Territory after being granted American citizenship. In response to these concerns, the Commissioner of Immigration, on September 13, 1945, wrote a letter to the Attorney General recommending that the “situation ... be handled by revoking the authority previously granted [the vice-consul] and by omitting to designate any representative authorized to confer citizenship in the Philippine Islands. . . .” The Commisioner’s recommendation was approved by the Attorney General on September 26, 1945, and the authority of the vice-consul to naturalize alien servicemen immediately revoked.
Because of this action, there was no authorized naturalization representative in the Philippines. The District Court found as a fact that respondent, had he known about his right to be naturalized while he was in the Armed Forces and had means been available, would have applied for naturalization. Instead, with no means available, respondent was discharged from the Armed Forces in December 1945, thereby losing his right to claim citizenship under § 702 of the 1940 Act.3
The Court’s opinion ignores the deliberate — and successful — effort on the part of agents of the Executive Branch to frustrate the congressional purpose and to deny substantive rights to Filipinos such as respondent by administrative fiat, indicating instead that there was no affirmative misconduct involved in this case.
The record does not support that conclusion. I would grant certiorari and put the case down for oral argument.

 C. 876, 54 Stat. 1137.

 As amended, Act of Mar. 27, 1942, c. 199, § 1001, which added §§ 701-705 to the 1940 Act, 56 Stat. 182, the Nationality Act waived certain normal requirements for naturalization, such as residency in the United States and literacy in English for noncitizens who had served in the United States Armed Forces. Id., § 701. Section 702 of the amended Act provided that aliens could claim these benefits even when, like respondent, they were outside the jurisdiction of a naturalization court, but only so long as they were in active service in the Armed Forces; this section also explicitly authorized the designation of naturalization officers to effectuate its purposes:
“During the present war, any person entitled to naturalization under section 701 of this Act, who while serving honorably in the military or naval forces of the United States is not within the jurisdiction of any court authorized to naturalize aliens, may be naturalized in accordance with all the applicable provisions of section 701 without appearing before a naturalization court. The petition for naturalization of any petitioner under this section shall be made and sworn to before, and filed with, a representative of the Immigration and Naturalization Service designated by the Commissioner or a Deputy Commissioner, which designated representative is hereby authorized to receive such petition in behalf of the Service, to conduct hearings thereon, to take testimony concerning any matter' touching or in any way affecting the admissibility of any such petitioner for naturalization, to call witnesses, to administer oaths, including the oath of the petitioner and his witnesses to the petition for naturalization and the oath of renunciation and allegiance prescribed by section 335 of this Act, and to grant naturalization, and to issue certificates of citizenship Id., § 702.

 See n. 2, supra. It was not until August 1946, eight months after respondent’s discharge, that a naturalization agent was reappointed for the Philippines and a good-faith effort made to naturalize Filipinos under § 702 of the Act. In four months, 4,000 Fihpinos took advantage of the opportunity.