Talk:United States nationality law

Moved text to here for discussion

I am really confused by this article and Citizenship of the United States. Both of them conflate two different principles. Nationality defines who belongs to a nation. Citizenship is what you get or owe because you belong. So, for example in this article, the text below (which I moved from the article to here) doesn't really fit with the topic of this article. This article is about the ways in which one obtains belonging, not the rights, obligations, and limits citizens have. I am focused at present on a series of articles on nationality and it is difficult to merely add information on our gaps of knowledge considering the state of these two at present. Lots of good information in both, but the organization of materials and conflation of topics makes it difficult for a reader to understand either topic. Perhaps this information should be moved there? SusunW (talk) 23:06, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Rights and responsibilities of U.S. citizens Rights of citizens See also|Voting rights in the United States

Adult citizens of the United States who are residents of one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) have the right to participate in the political system of the United States, as well as their state and local governments, (with most states having restrictions on voting by persons convicted of felonies, and a federal constitutional prohibition on naturalized persons running for President and Vice President of the United States), to be represented and protected abroad by the United States (through U.S. embassies and consulates), and to live in the United States and certain territories without any immigration requirements. Felons can vote in over 40 states, and in at least 2 while incarcerated. Felons can also serve jury duty if approved.

Responsibilities of citizens Some U.S. citizens have the obligation to serve in a jury, if selected and legally qualified. Citizens are also required (under the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code) to pay taxes on their total income from all sources worldwide, including income earned abroad while living abroad. Under certain circumstances, however, U.S. citizens living and working abroad may be able to reduce or eliminate their U.S. federal income tax via the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion or the Foreign Tax Credit. U.S. taxes payable may be alternatively reduced by credits for foreign income taxes regardless of the length of stay abroad. The United States Government also insists that U.S. citizens travel into and out of the United States on a U.S. passport, regardless of any other nationality they may possess.

Male U.S. citizens (including those living permanently abroad and those with multiple citizenships) from 18–25 years of age are required to register with the Selective Service System at age 18 for possible conscription into the armed forces. Although no one has been drafted in the U.S. since 1973, draft registration continues in the case of a possible reinstatement on some future date.

In the Oath of Citizenship, immigrants becoming naturalized U.S. citizens swear that when required by law they will bear arms on behalf of the United States, will perform noncombatant service in the U.S. Armed Forces, and will perform work of national importance under civilian direction. In some cases, the USCIS allows the oath to be taken without the clauses regarding the first two of these three sworn commitments.

The above relates to this article edit, I think, but I don't see correspondence. Offhand, I agree that articles ought to generally contain content falling within the named topic. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:13, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Moving additional text here for discussion which is talking about rights rather than acquiring nationality:

Eligibility for public office A person who becomes a U.S. citizen through naturalization is not considered a natural born citizen. Consequently, naturalized U.S. citizens are not eligible to become President of the United States or Vice President of the United States, which would ordinarily be the case as established by the Presidential Succession Act. For example, though the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Labor are tenth and eleventh in the presidential line of succession, Elaine Chao and Carlos Gutierrez (respectively former U.S. Secretaries of Labor and Commerce under President George W. Bush) would have been unable to succeed to the presidency because they became U.S. citizens through naturalization. The highest-ranking naturalized citizens to have been excluded from the Presidential Line of Succession were Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, each of whom would have been fourth in line as Secretary of State had they been natural born citizens.

Whether this restriction applies to children born to non-U.S. citizens but adopted as minors by U.S. citizens is a matter of some debate, since the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 is ambiguous as to whether acquisition of citizenship by that route is to be regarded as naturalized or natural-born. Those who argue that the restriction does not apply point out that the child automatically becomes a citizen even though violating every single requirement of eligibility for naturalization, and thus the case falls closer to the situation of birth abroad to U.S. citizens than to naturalization.

Some argue that the phrase "natural born citizen" describes a category of citizenship distinct from that described by the phrase "U.S. Citizen" in Article Two of the United States Constitution, and this was discussed during the constitutional convention of 1787. While it is true that "natural born citizen" is not defined anywhere within the text of the Constitution and that the Constitution makes use of the phrase "citizen" and "natural born citizen", Supreme Court decisions from United States v. Wong Kim Ark to the present have considered the distinction to be between natural-born and naturalized citizenship.

In her 1988 article in the Yale Law Journal, Jill Pryor wrote, "It is well settled that 'native-born' citizens, those born in the United States, qualify as natural born. It is also clear that persons born abroad of alien parents, who later become citizens by naturalization, do not. But whether a person born abroad of American parents, or of one American and one alien parent, qualifies as natural born has never been resolved."

An April 2000 CRS report by the Congressional Research Service, asserts that most constitutional scholars interpret the phrase "natural born citizen" as including citizens born outside the United States to parents who are U.S. citizens under the "natural born" requirement.

Several holders of the offices of President and Vice President have touched on questions of whether they were natural-born:

• Chester A. Arthur, President from 1881 to 1885, was born in the U.S. state of Vermont of an American mother and Irish father. His status as a natural-born citizen was challenged by a political opponent during the 1880 campaign, who claimed Arthur had been born in Canada or Ireland.
• Charles Curtis, Vice President from 1929 to 1933, was born in Kansas Territory, which was not a US state.
• Presidential candidates George W. Romney (born in Mexico), Ted Cruz (born in Canada), Barry Goldwater, and John McCain (born in U.S. territories), were not born within a US state but were born to US citizens. Their natural-born status was never seriously challenged.
• Barack Obama, President from 2009 to 2017, was born in the U.S. state of Hawaii of an American mother and Kenyan father. He was the subject of several racist conspiracy theories that claimed he had been born in Kenya and was thus not natural-born.

Travel freedom of U.S. citizens

See also: Visa requirements for United States citizens

Countries and territories with visa-free or visa-on-arrival entries for holders of regular United States passports

  United States

  Visa free access

  Visa issued upon arrival

  Electronic authorization or online payment required / eVisa

  Both visa on arrival and eVisa available

  Visa required prior to arrival

  No entry

Visa requirements for the United States citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of United States. According to the 2019 Henley Passport Index, holders of a United States passport can visit 185 countries and territories visa-free or with visa on arrival. The United States passport is currently ranked jointly 6th alongside the UK in terms of travel freedom in the world.

In 2018, the United States nationality was ranked twenty-fifth in the Nationality Index (QNI). This index differs from the Visa Restrictions Index, which focuses on external factors including travel freedom. The QNI considers, in addition to travel freedom, internal factors such as peace & stability, economic strength, and human development.

Moving additional text here for discussion which is talking about rights rather than acquiring nationality:

Non-citizen U.S. nationals may reside and work in the United States without restrictions, and may apply for citizenship under similar rules as foreign nationals or citizens, except that they do not need to hold U.S. permanent resident status when they apply or to have held it for any length of time before applying. Like permanent residents, they are not currently allowed by any U.S. state to vote in federal or state elections, although, as with permanent residents, there is no constitutional prohibition against their doing so. The only elections in which a non-citizen U.S. national may vote are the local and congressional elections in American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.

For tax purposes the term "U.S. national" refers to individuals who were born in American Samoa or were born in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands who have chosen to be U.S. nationals instead of U.S. citizens.

References

rollback

Anonymous MK2006 The article is about nationality, i.e. acquiring membership in the United States. It is not about the obligations and privileges of citizenship. I'm happy to discuss wording changes, but citizenship privileges, etc. belong in Citizenship of the United States, not in this article. Many of the nationality articles of WP are confusing because the concepts are not synonymous but editors treat them as if they are. SusunW (talk) 17:47, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@SusunW: Thanks, it is indeed a very confusing subject because US nationality law deals with both nationality (i.e, as you said, acquiring membership of the US) and the rights and privileges of US citizenship. Perhaps, there could be some changes to the wording, as many statements in that article add to the confusion, such as where it states that people born in the States, DC, and most of the populated territories are "natural born nationals" but those in American Samoa are not (of course they are, they are US nationals from both, if that's what it's supposed to mean). Otherwise, the correct term is "natural born citizen," although (as you correctly stated) this article is about nationality. Strange, eh? Anonymous MK2006 (talk) 21:26, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Anonymous MK2006 I blame the Brits ;) for the confusion. They are the ones who seem to have spread equating the words, when in international law they aren't the same. I'm working through a whole series of articles on nationality laws and it's really difficult to try to keep the concepts separate. The point is that 1) one can be a national and not be a citizen or have any rights at all, and 2) one doesn't actually ever derive citizenship in the United States at birth, even if it is called "birthright citizenship". One doesn't reach majority until age 18 on a federal level and different states have different rules on majority, so before then, they cannot exercise any privileges or obligations of citizenship. Citizenship has always been something that can be given or taken away either federally or at the state level in the US, whereas nationality typically can only be removed for specific infractions. I just found a really interesting source on American Samoa which pretty much sums it up. Fascinatingly, American Samoan women did not lose their nationality because the Expatriation Act of 1907, specified women "citizens" lost their nationality, which they were not. SusunW (talk) 21:46, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@SusunW: Yeah, as a Brtit myself I know all too well that the terms "nationality" and "citizenship are not only used synonymously, but are used in many, many different contexts. For example British Overseas Territories citizens are merely British nationals, rather than full British citizens. Now, you may have noticed some similarities between this, and the US's "non-citizen national" phenomenon. But it's even more complicated when you realise that there's British Nationals (Overseas) (i.e. Hong Kongers that still retain British nationality post colonial-era), and effectively two types of British citizenship: Regular British citizenship (i.e. the citizenship granted to those born in the UK proper), and British Islands Citizenship (the citizenship given to those born in the Crown Dependencies of Britain (Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man). Now all these statuses come with different rights and responsibilities from one another. So no wonder there is widespread confusion regarding citizenship vs nationality.

Anonymous MK2006 Totally agree. I've worked my way through the British Caribbean, what a stone soup that was, so yes, complicated. I haven't even begun to think about doing Europe yet. Trying to finish out the Americas and the Oceania, and maybe Africa before I tackle Europe and Asia. All just to figure out when and how women lost their nationality and if they ever got it back (So far, the only possible place that they didn't lose nationality was Chile, but I have my doubts about that). SusunW (talk) 21:53, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

"citizenship privileges, etc. belong in Citizenship of the United States, not in this article" : Totally agree with that. It's obvious, there shouldn't even be a debate. Frenchl (talk) 17:27, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Palmyra Atoll

I have WP:BOLDly removed the following content added recently in this edit by @SusanW here for discussion:

Also that year, the Palmyra Atoll was separated from Hawaii and extended benefits of the Constitution.

I am not by any stretch of the imagination an expert on the topic of this article, but (1) I don't see hwat this sentence adds to the paragraph from which I removed it and (2) there seems to my inexpert eye to be a problem with it.

The source to which the cite refers is this and page 7 there contains a sentence reading: "In 1900, in a law that remains in force, the Congress extended the Constitution in its entirety to the ninth area, Palmyra Atoll." I think that the 1900 law described as remaining in force in that source is the Hawaiian Organic Act, which (I think) can be seen at "chap. 339" here and section 5 of which provides, "That the Constitution [...] shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory as elsewhere in the United States". The Territory of Hawaii at the time included Palmyra Atoll, and the Act specified neither specially nor specifically that the US Constitution was applicable to that atoll but, more widely, to the entire territory of Hawaii of which the atoll was a part.

Plamyra Atoll was not separated from Hawaii by that 1900 Act but by the 1959 Hawaii Admission Act. Once separated, having been incorporated into the US along with the rest of the territory in 1900, it remained an incorporated territory while the rest of Hawaii became a State. Beyond that, my problem re (2) above is that in the context of the paragraph from which I removed this snippet that snippet seems to be referring specially and specifically to Palmyra Atoll, and that confused me; also, re (1) above, I don't think that the sentence adds anything to the paragraph even absent my confusion.

I hope that is clear -- it took me a lot of work to figure out. If I've screwed this up, please feel free to add the snippet back in and accept my apology for the screwup. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:28, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Wtmitchell Good sleuthing. Perhaps sourcing can be found to confirm the dates you have stated? The issue is that when I discovered the article, while trying to research women's nationality, there was very little sourcing for anything in it. I tried to keep relevant information and find sourcing for all of the information in the article. The only source I could find on the Palmyra Atoll was the one I included, which clearly does show the constitution is fully applicable there. Perhaps you have access to different references, than I do in Mexico. SusunW (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

References

Confusing wording and missing info

"If the birth occurred prior to or after October 14, 1940, [...]" was confusing and didn't make much sense. It appeared here. The supporting source cited covers the period after that date, so I WP:BOLDLY removed "prior to or". The article is missing info re the period prior to that date. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:56, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

When reading the cited PDF [1], top paragraph on p. 4 of the PDF says that it applies "whether born before or after the effective date of this Act". So, it applied retroactively as well as on a go-forward basis. I expect the "prior to or after" wording was an attempt to capture this. The final page of the PDF states that it was effective 90 days after its 10/14/40 approval. I took a shot at clarifying the language, although it might be a bit convoluted. CAVincent (talk) 23:30, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Adding the I-Am-Not-A-Lawyer disclaimer. Specifically, I may be misunderstanding the last paragraph on p. 3, or missing something elsewhere in the law. Happy to be corrected if I am misunderstanding or misstating the law. Oh, also, my guess is that this law was retroactive specifically to address the period prior to that date (otherwise an absence noted in Wtmitchell's comment). CAVincent (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2022 (UTC)