Speech #920313946

Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of H.R. 8273. legislation to amend section 301(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. as amended. The basic purpose of this bill is to equalize the provisions of the act in regard to the perfection of citizenship by children born abroad of one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent. Currently. there is a disparity of treatment in that a child who acquires citizenship through the naturalization of an alien parent fares better than one who has citizenship at birth but does not perfect it. Section 301(b) of the act requires that a person who acquires U.S. citizenship by virtue of having been born abroad to parents. one of whom is a U.S. citizen and the other an alien. shall lose his citizenship unless he comes to the United States and is continuously present for 5 years between the ages of 14 and 28. By contrast. a child born overseas who is not a citizen at birth can nevertheless obtain citizenship with no retention requirements much more readily. Such a case arises when the citizen parent lacks the physical presence requirement for transmission of citizenship under section 301(a) of the act. The requirement is that the parent must have lived in the United States for not less than 10 years. at least 5 of which were after attaining the age of 14 years. When a citizen parent does not meet this test. the child can later acquire citizenship if the other spouse becomes naturalized before the childs 16th birthday. The child then needs only to begin permanent residence in the United States. There is no 5year residence requirement for the child. and citizenship can be obtained promptly and with no conditions for retention. It makes little sense to favor a child who was not a citizen at birth over one who was. H.R. 8273 would remedy this anomaly in the act by permitting a child who was a citizen at birth to perfect his citizenship by residing in the United States for 2 years between the ages of 14 and 28. or by beginning permanent residence before the age of 18 if his alien parent becomes naturalized. The effect of this change would be to ease the burden of perfecting citizenship. Since World War II. more and more Americans are living abroad as employees of U.S. corporations. the U.S. Armed Forces. and the Government. Many of our citizens marry noncitizens while serving abroad. The children of such citizens must bear the burden of retainingor perfectingtheir citizenship. and this often involves hardships for young families. My own attention to this problem began in 1966. when I was contacted by a Hawaii resident whose children were born overseas while he was employed by a firm under an Air Force contract. He was advised by the Immigration and Naturalization Service that his children would have to reside in the United States for 5 years between the ages of 14 and 28 if they wanted to keep their citizenship. Obviously. this would involve long separation from the parents if the father kept his overseas job. I introduced legislation on this subject in 1966. In the 92d Congress. the proposal to amend section 301(b) is section 2 of H.R. 3572. Sections 1 and 3. dealing with other inequities in the Immigration and Nationality Act. have already been passed by the House as H.R. 1534 and H.R. 1535. I was advised by the House Committee on theJudiciary that no legislative action was necessary because section 301(b) was held unconstitutional by a threejudge court in the case of Aldo Marion Bellei against Dean Rusk. in 1969. Subsequently. however. the decision was appealed to the Supreme Court. and on April 5. 1971. in Rogers against Bellei.. it was reversed.