Naturalization
For the biology usage, see Invasive species.In
law,
naturalization is the act whereby a person voluntarily and actively acquires a
nationality which is not his or her nationality at birth. Naturalization is most associated with economic migrants or
refugees who have
immigrated to a country and resided there as an
alien, and who have voluntarily chosen to become a citizen of that country after meeting specific requirements.
Denaturalization is the reverse of naturalization, when a state deprives one of its citizens of his or her
citizenship. After
World War I, many European countries, including
democracies, passed
denaturalization laws, of which the 1935
Nuremberg Laws remained the most famous.
In general, basic requirements for naturalization are that the applicant hold a legal status as a full-time
resident for a minimum period of time and that the applicant promise to obey and uphold that country's laws, to which an oath or pledge of allegiance is sometimes added. Some countries also require that a naturalized national must renounce any other nationalities that he currently holds, forbidding
dual citizenship, but whether this renunciation actually causes loss of the person's original nationalities will again depend on the laws of the countries involved.
Nationality is traditionally either based on
jus soli ("right of the territory") or on
jus sanguinis ("right of blood"), although it now usually mixes both. Whatever the case, the massive increase in
population flux due to
globalization and the sharp increase in the numbers of
refugees following World War I has created an important class of non-citizens, sometimes called
denizens. In some rare cases, procedures of mass naturalization were passed (Greece in 1922,
Armenian refugees or, more recently, Argentine people escaping the
economic crisis). As naturalization laws had been created to deal with the rare case of people separated from their
nation state because they lived abroad (
expatriates), Western democracies were not ready to naturalize the massive influx of
stateless people which followed massive denationalizations and the expulsion of minorities in the first part of the 20th century — the two greatest such minorities after World War I were the Jews and the Armenians, but they also counted the (mostly aristocrats)
Russians which had escaped the 1917
October Revolution and the
war communism period), and then the
Spanish refugees. As did
Hannah Arendt point out,
internment camps became the "only nation" of such stateless people, since they were often considered "indesirable" and where stuck in an illegal situation (their country had expelled them or deprived them of their nationality, while they hadn't been naturalized, thus living in a judicial no man's land).
After
World War II, the increase in
international migrations created a new category of refugees, most of them
economic refugees. For economic, political, humanitarian and pragmatic reasons, many states passed laws allowing a person to acquire their nationality after birth (such as by marriage to a national or by having
ancestors who are nationals of that country), in order to reduce the scope of this category. However, this system still maintains in some countries a large part of the immigrated population in an illegal status, albeit some massive
regularizations (in Spain by
José Luis Zapatero's government and in Italy by
Berlusconi's government).
Early examples
There had always been a distinction in English law between the subjects of the monarch and aliens: the monarch's subjects owed him allegiance, and included those born in his dominions (natural-born subjects) and those who later gave him their allegiance (naturalized subjects).
Naturalization in Finland
Finland became independent on December 6, 1917. The constitution, dating back to Swedish rule, required all Finnish citizens to be of
Evangelical Lutheran faith. Both Jews and Muslims started to apply for Finnish citizenship in 1918. Muslims, however, were accepted only after the
Constitution of Finland was modified and general freedom of religion was declared by 1919.
Naturalization in the United Kingdom
The requirements for naturalization as a British citizen depend on whether one is married to a British citizen or not.
For those married to a British citizen the applicant must:
* hold
indefinite leave to remain in the UK (or an equivalent such as
Right of Abode or Irish citizenship)
* have lived legally in the UK for three years
* been outside of the UK no more than 90 days during the one-year period prior to filing the application.
* show sufficient knowledge of life in the UK, either by passing the
Life in the United Kingdom test or by attending combined English language and citizenship classes. Proof of this must be supplied with one's application for naturalisation. Those aged 65 or over may be able to claim exemption.
* meet specified
English,
Welsh or
Scottish Gaelic language competence standards. Those who pass the
Life in the UK test are deemed to meet English language requirements.
For those not married to a British citizen the requirements are:
* five years legal residence in the UK
* been outside of the UK no more than 90 days during the one-year period prior to filing the application.
* indefinite leave to remain or equivalent must have been held for 12 months
* the applicant must intend to continue to live in the UK or work overseas for the UK government or a British corporation or association.
* the same language and knowledge of life in the UK standards apply as for those married to British citizens
All applicants for naturalization must be of "good character". Naturalisation is at the discretion of the Home Secretary but is normally granted if the requirements are met.
Naturalization in the United States
In the
United States of America, naturalization is mentioned in the
Constitution.
 |
A Naturalization Certificate from 1911 |
Congress is given the power to prescribe a uniform rule of naturalization, which was administered by state courts. There was some confusion about which courts could naturalize; the final ruling was that it could be done by any "court of record having common-law jurisdiction and a clerk (
prothonotary) and seal."
The Constitution also mentions 'natural born citizen'. The first naturalization Act (drafted by Thomas Jefferson) used the phrases 'natural born' and 'native born' interchangeably. To be 'naturalized' therefore means to become as if "natural born" -- i.e. a citizen.
There is an interesting loophole here in that the Constitution does not mandate race-neutral naturalization. Until
1952, the Naturalization Acts written by Congress still allowed only
white persons to become naturalized as citizens (except for two years in the 1870s which the Supreme Court declared to be a mistake).
Naturalization is also mentioned in the
Fourteenth Amendment. Before that Amendment, individual states set their own standards for citizenship. The Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof shall be citizens of the United States and of the State in which they reside."
Note also that the Amendment is ambiguous on the issue of singular or plural United States. In the early days the phrase 'United States' was used as a singular or a plural according to the meaning. After the Civil War, it was generally always a singular. The Amendment does not say 'its jurisdiction' or 'their jurisdiction' but 'the jurisdiction thereof'.
The
Naturalization Act of 1795 set the initial parameters on naturalization: 'free, White persons' who had been resident for five years or more. The
Naturalization Act of 1798, part of the
Alien and Sedition Acts, was passed by the
Federalists and extended the residency requirement from five to fourteen years. It specifically targeted
Irish and
French immigrants who were involved in
anti-Federalist politics. It was repealed in
1802.
An 1862 law allowed honorably discharged Army veterans of any war to petition for naturalization, without having filed a declaration of intent, after only one year of residence in the United States. An 1894 law extended the same privilege to honorably discharged 5-year veterans of the Navy or Marine Corps. Over 192,000 aliens were naturalized between May 9, 1918, and June 30, 1919, under an act of May 9, 1918. Laws enacted in 1919, 1926, 1940, and 1952 continued preferential treatment provisions for veterans. [Schulze, Lorine McGinnis (2003) http://www.naturalizationrecords.com/usa/ Retrieved April 23, 2005]
Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment meant that, in theory, all persons born in the U.S. are citizens regardless of race. However it was not applied to
Asians at the time. The enabling legislation for the naturalization aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment was the
1870 Page Act, which allowed naturalization of 'aliens of
African nativity and to persons of African descent,' but is silent about other races.
The
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned Chinese workers and specifically barred them from naturalization. The
Immigration Act of 1917, (Barred Zone Act) extended those restrictions to almost all Asians.
The
1922 Cable Act specified that women marrying aliens ineligible for naturalization lose their US citizenship. At the time, all Asians were ineligible for naturalization. The
Immigration Act of 1924 barred entry of all those ineligible for naturalization, which again meant non-Filipino Asians.
Following the
Spanish American War in
1898,
Philippine residents were classified as US nationals. But the
1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act, or
Philippine Independence Act, reclassified Filipinos as aliens, and set a quota of 50 immigrants per year, and otherwise applying the Immigration Act of 1924 to them.
Asians were first permitted naturalization by the
1943 Magnuson Act, which repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act.
India and the Philippines were allowed 100 annual immigrants under the
1946 Filipino Naturalization Act. The
War Brides Act of
1945 permitted soldiers to bring back their foreign wives.
The
1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (better known as the
McCarran-Walter Act), lifted racial restrictions, but kept the quotas in place. The
Immigration Act of 1965 finally allowed Asians and all persons from all nations be given equal access to immigration and naturalization.
Illegal immigration became a major issue in the US at the end of the
20th Century. The
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, while tightening border controls, also provided the opportunity of naturalization for illegal aliens who had been in the country for at least four years.
The
Child Citizenship Act of
2001 streamlined the naturalization process for children
adopted internationally. A child under age 18 who is adopted by at least one U.S. citizen parent, and is in the custody of the citizen parent(s), is now automatically naturalized once admitted to the United States as an immigrant.
Massive naturalizations
A few rare massive naturalizations procedures have been implemented by nation states. In 1922,
Greece massively naturalized all the Greek refugees coming back from
Turkey. The second massive naturalization procedure was in favor of Armenian refugees coming from Turkey, who went to
Syria,
Lebanon or other former
Ottoman countries.
The most recent massive naturalization case happenned after the
Argentine economic crisis that led to political and economic collapse in the beginning of the 21st century.
Spain and
Italy then allowed Argentine citizens who could prove being a third generation Spanish (or Italian) descendant to ask for naturalization (in virtue of
jus sanguinis, as in the Greek case). Hence, many of the Argentine middle and upper class (those who could afford flying away from their country) managed to acquire European nationality, allowing them not to be confined to the
illegal alien status.
Before
World War I, a few countries, notably the US, had some rules governing denaturalization, which could be enforced against a citizen who ceased having authentic
patriotic feelings. Such denaturalized citizens became
stateless persons. According to
John Hope Simpson, most European states passed amendments during the war to be able to cancel naturalization
[ John Hope Simpson, The Refugee Problem, Institute of International Affairs, October 1939, quoted by Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), section 2 on Imperialism, last chapter ]. In
Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power or Bare Life (1998), philosopher
Giorgio Agamben has also pointed out how various denaturalization laws were passed after World War I by most European countries:
"It is important to note that starting with the period of World War I, many European states began to introduce laws which permitted their own citizens to be denaturalized and denationalized. The first was France, in 1915, with regard to naturalized citizens of "enemy" origins; in 1922 the example was followed by Belgium, which revoked the naturalization of citizens who had committed "anti-national" acts during the war; in 1926 the Fascist regime in Italy passed a similar law concerning citizens who had shown themselves to be "unworthy of Italian citizenship"; in 1933 it was Austria's turn, and so forth, until in 1935 the Nuremberg Laws divided German citizens into full citizens and citizens without political rights. These laws - and the mass statelessness that resulted - mark a decisive turning point in the life of the modern nation-state and its definitive emancipation from the naive notions of "people" and "citizen.""
The 1915 French law on denaturalizations only applied itself to naturalized citizens with "enemy origins" that had kept their original nationality. In 1916, Portugal passed a law which automatically denaturalized all citizens born from a German father. In 1922, Belgium voted a law cancelling the naturalization of persons accused of having committed "antinational acts" during the war; which was enforced in 1934 by a new decree which cited people "gravely missing to their duties as Belgian citizens". Since 1926 in Italy, people who didn't deserve Italien citizenship" or whom represented a threat to
public order. Egypt in 1926 and Turkey in 1928 enacted laws authorizing them to denaturalize any person threatening the public order, while France passed a law under
Raymond Poincaré's government, in 1927, which entitled it to denaturalize any new citizen which committed acts contrary to the
national interest. Austria passed a similar law in 1933, by which it could denaturalize any citizen which had participated in a hostile action against Austria. Finally Germany in 1933 passed a law authorizing it to denaturalize any person "living abroad". Russia had also passed several decrees since 1921
[ Hannah Arendt, op.cit. ].
The massive cancelation of naturalizations, as those implemented by Germany in 1933 against naturalized persons with Jewish origins, preceded most of the time the
denationalisation of citizens by birth (for example with the 1935
Nuremberg laws). Then, in the 1930s in Belgium and some Western democracies, laws were passed authorizing denaturalizations by simple
decrees, and some mass denaturalization were enacted.
Hannah Arendt thus recall the action of the
Greek government towards the
Armenian
refugees: 1 000 refugees on a total of 45 000 Armenian refugees were naturalized between 1923 and 1928. After 1928, the law which authorized to naturalize all refugees less than 22 years old was suspended; in 1936, all the naturalizations were cancelled by the government
[ Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, section 2 on Imperialism, last chapter ].
*
French nationality law*
Homo Sacer*
Citizenship
