Mr. President. Mondays Supreme Court decision declaring it unconstitutional to strip citizenship from naturalized Americans is a milestone of progress for the cause of human rights. It is yet another proclamation in keeping with the fundamental command of the Constitution that there must not be any "secondclass citizens" in our land. Thousands upon thousands of naturalized Americans. who have chosen or are forced to live overseas for family. business. or other perfectly legitimate reasons. have cause to hail the Courts ruling as their Magna Carta. But perhaps even more important. most of us are descendants of men and women who were not Americans at birth. The statute which the Court struck down stood as a symbolic badge of inferior status for all naturalized Americans. past and present. based on the fact of their ancestry alone. The time for removing this unconscionable blot from the nationality laws was long overdue. and if the Supreme Court had not decided the way it did. I would have continued to press for repeal of the statute as in previous bills that I have sponsored.
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