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26 A.B.A. J. 938 (1940)
Nationality Act of 1940

handle is hein.journals/abaj26 and id is 964 raw text is: NATIONALITY ACT OF 1940 By GEORGE S. KNIGHT Assistant to the Legal Adviser, Department of State Historical Background HE enactment of the Nationality Act of 1940, which was approved and became a law on October 14, 1940,1 represents the first attempt ever made since the founding of our Republic to codify and unify all the laws of the United States relating to the impor- tant subjects of nationality and naturalization. The need for revising and codifying our nationality laws, which is of especial importance at this particular time, has for many years held the attention of high govern- ment officials. As early as 1923, Mr. Alvey A. Adee, Second As- sistant Secretary of State, in a memorandum addressed to the then Secretary of State, Mr. Charles Evans Hughes, agreed with a suggestion of Mr. Richard W. Flournoy of the then Solicitor's Office, that our com- plex nationality laws should be revised, and made the following characteristic statement: I think a commission to determine something should be recommended to Congress. In order to have the proper background not only for recommending appropriate legislation to Congress but also to obtain comments on a pending bill in Congress, the Department of State on December 28, 1927, sent a circular instruction to certain American consular offi- cers in which opinions were requested regarding de- sirable changes of the existing nationality laws, based upon their experience in dealing with cases arising at various posts where they had been stationed. The in- formation obtained from these sources, upon being sum- marized in one report, proved of considerable value. On June 23, 1928, Secretary of State Frank B. Kel- logg created by a Departmental Order an Inter-depart- mental Committee composed of Mr. Richard W. Flournoy, Assistant Solicitor; Mr. Donald Bigelow, Foreign Service Officer; and Mr. John J. Scanlan, Assistant Chief of the Passport Division. This com- mittee, being charged with the duty of drafting a bill which would embody the views of the Department with respect to the codification of our nationality laws, made its report on March 29, 1929. An important provi- sion recommended was that, with certain exceptions, a person who was born with dual nationality would lose his American nationality if, when he attained the age of twenty-three years, he had his principal place of abode in the foreign country of which he was also a national. While the Department of State recommended that such a provision should be included in the Na- tionality Act of 1940, the Departments of Justice and Labor would not agree that this was desirable. Another important provision recommended by the Inter-depart- mental Committee was that a naturalized person upon residing for two years in his native country or five years in any other foreign country would, with certain excep- tions, cease to be an American national. The latter provision recommended by the, Inter-departmental Com- mittee was used as a basis for Sections 404-406 of the recent Act, which provide for a loss of citizenship in 1. This Act, Public No. 853, 76th Cong., H. R. 9980, does not take effect until 90 days from the date of its approval. the cases of naturalized persons who reside for certain periods in foreign countries. On April 2b, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated by Executive Order No. 6115 the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Labor as a committee to review the nationality laws of the United States, to recommend revisions, and to codify the laws into one comprehensive nationality law for submission to the Congress. In pursuance of this Order, a committee of advisers, composed of six rep- resentatives of the Department of State, Wilbur J. Carr, Chairman, Green H. Hackworth, Richard W. Flour- noy, Ruth B. Shipley, John J. Scanlan, and Benedict M. English, Secretary; six representatives of the De- partment of Labor, Daniel W. MacCormack, Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr., Edward J. Shaughnessy, Henry B. Hazard, Thomas N, Eliot and Howard D. Ebey; and one of the Department of Justice, Albert L~vitt, was appointed to study the existing nationality laws, and prepare a draft code containing such changes as seemed desirable, together with a report covering the suggested changes. Due to the complexity of these laws, the wide scope of the field covered by them, and certain obstacles which arose, the report was not completed until August 13, 1935. Among those called upon by the Depart- ment of State for suggestions in connection with the preparation of the code were several chiefs of division of the Department of State, certain Passport Agents in New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, and thirteen of the principal consulates abroad. It may also be mentioned that the appropriate committees of the American Bar Association2 and the Federal Bar Asso- ciation rendered valuable assistance in connection with the preparation of material for and the enactment of the Nationality Act of 1940. On June 13, 1938, the President transmitted to Con- gress, with a message, the text of, and explanatory comment on, the various provisions of the original draft code which was transmitted by the Secretary of State, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Labor to the President on June 1, 1938.3 After occupying the attention of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization for considerable time, during which extensive hearings were held, the bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Dickstein, Chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, on September 11, 1940.4 2. On January 8, 1940 the Section of the American Bar Association on International and Comparative Law adopted the following resolution: Resolved, That the movement to have a thorough revision of the nationality laws of the United States be endorsed and that it be embodied in a single nationality code similar to H. R. 6127 [Later H. R. 99801 introduced May 3, 1939, and entitled A Bill to Revise and Codify the Nationality Laws of the United States into a Comprehensive Nationality Code. See 64 A.B.A. Rep. 1939, p. 400. 3. See Part 1 of the House Committee print of H. R. 9980, 76th Congress, 1st Session. 4. See Congressional Record, Vol. 86, No. 169 of September 11, 1940, op. 18085-18106. For the other discussion of the Act in Congress, see Congressional Record, Vol. 86. No. 182 of September 30, 1940, p~p. 19344-19345; idem., No. 186 of October 4. 1940, pp. 19889-19890.

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