Citizenship of the United States

“ Our existing laws have been in their administration an unimpressive and often an unintelligible form. We accept the man as a citizen without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the duties of citizenship without any knowledge as to what they are. The privileges of American citizenship are so great and its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of every person applying for [199] citizenship and a good knowledge by him of our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the character of it. ”

“ The citizenship of a naturalized person has the same dignity and status as the citizenship of those of us born here, save only for eligibility to the Presidency. He is a member of a community included within the protection of all the guarantees of the Constitution. ”

“ Children under age become citizens with their parents.
An American-born man may live abroad many years and not lose his citizenship.
A naturalized citizen is considered as losing his citizenship if he returns to his native country and resides there two years.
A citizen has the right to withdraw from the United States, renounce his allegiance, and acquire citizenship in another country.
An alien enjoys the same protection of the law as does the citizen. The government extends its protection to the native-born and the naturalized citizen alike. ”

“ The citizenship laws, rights, or recognitions of other nations could not influence and impact the United States’ own determination of who its citizens “at birth” would be, that is, who would be a “natural born” citizen, as the question of citizenship and categories of citizenship are a function of “municipal law”—the internal law of every country, as opposed to matters of international law or foreign law. ”

“ The kind of society our Constitution has created-free and fair and reformable-helps to explain the desire of many foreign nationals to become United States citizens. Last year, over a quarter of a million people, more than ever before in a single year, took the oath of United States citizenship. ”

“ It was equally necessary that the national government should possess this power, if it was intended that citizenship should be regarded at all in the selection of those who were to fill the national offices. ”

“ The first Congress recognised its constitutional obligation to provide a uniform law for national citizenship by allowing an alien who had resided two years within its jurisdiction and one year within any State to take an oath before any court of common-law record to support the Constitution and thereby become a citizen. ”