Speech #820215196

Both these qualifications are to be found in the HumphreyLehman bill. Next. I have in the McCarran bill an Instance of loss of citizenship by a naturalized citizen. We know that he loses his citizenship if he lives for 2 or 3 years In the country of his former national.. Itythe country of his birth. There are many who disapprove of this provision of law. but I shall pass over it. Much less well known is the provision of the law which causes the naturalized citizen to lose his American citizenship if he lives in some other. entirely different foreign country for 5 years. There are certain exceptions for Government employees and for representatives of American organizations. and similar people. but they do not cover the case of the native of France or Bulgaria or Finland who becomes a citizen of the United States and then goes to some other country. such as Argentina. to work and live for more than 5 years. In section 352 (a) (2). the McCarran bill continues the provision of law expatriating such a man. The HumphreyLehman bill does not. Under the McCarran bill the nativeborn citizen can go to Argentina for 5 years. the naturalized citizen cannot. The evils of this kind of provision are plain. First. it makes the naturalized citizen conscious of his inferior status. We would thus be discriminating between the nativeborn citizen and the naturalized citizen. Second. when we expatriate this naturalized citizen we lose the benefit he confers upon us by acting as our representative abroad. Several organizations. among them the Department of State. have pointed this out. Let me read to you the testimony on this provision given before the Senate Judiciary Committee by Mrs. Ruth B. Shipley. Chief of the Passport Division of the Department of State: One is the loss of nationality by naturalized citizens in a third country. We would like to see that section omitted entirely from the bill. and we feel it would be to the interests of the United States to maintain the friendship of all of these people scattered all over the world who are not in the country of their origin. who hold themselves out as Americans. Many of them grew up in this country. and came here when they were very young. and they were trained here and they are known as Americans. and skilled in various things. but they are not residing in a third country for any of the reasons mentioned in the bill (hearings. p. 247). These are some of the clauses in the McCarran bill that will invade the rights of American citizens and will expatriate them on trivial grounds. I should like to turn briefly to the provisions of the McCarran bill which limit the process of naturalizationthe method by which the foreignborn can become citizensthe method by which they become fullfledged members of the community. There is a requirement. unless the Attorney General specifically directs to the contrary. that in every case the applicant for naturalization shall be the subject of a neighborhood investigationsection 335 (a). This will only delay naturalization and waste the time of Qovernment investigators. There is the rigid definition of good moral character which will limit the discretion of the judge In disposing of each case on its own meritssection 101 (f). Both of these would be changes in the law. There is the provision that only children under 16 become citizens when their parents are naturalized. as compared with present law. which allows children up to the age of 18 to become naturalized by their parents naturalizationsection 320 (a) (1) and section 321 (a) (4). Another section. again new in the law. will forever reject as possible citizens all conscientious objectors. though they are willing to take an oath to perform noncombatant service or to perform civilian worksection 337. Mr.