Petition of Sproule

19 F. Supp. 995, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1794
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedJuly 9, 1937
Docket54295-Y
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 19 F. Supp. 995 (Petition of Sproule) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Petition of Sproule, 19 F. Supp. 995, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1794 (S.D. Cal. 1937).

Opinion

YANKWICH, District Judge.

Mary Edith Sproule, to whom we shall refer as the petitioner, has filed a petition for naturalization under the provisions of section 4 of the Act of September 22, 1922 (42 Stat. 1021-1022), as amended by the Act of July 3, 1930 (46 Stat. 854, § 2 (a) 8 U.S.C.A. § 369), which reads:

“Sec. 4. (a) A woman who hás lost her United States citizenship by reason of her marriage to an alien eligible to citizenship or by reason of the loss of United States citizenship by her husband may, if eligible to citizenship and if she has not acquired any other nationality by affirmative act, be naturalized upon full and complete compliance with all requirements of the naturalization laws, with the following exceptions:
“(1) No declaration of intention and no certificate of arrival shall be required, and no period of residence within the United States or within the county where the petition is filed shall be required;
“(2) The petition need not set forth that it is the intention of the petitioner to reside permanently within the United States;
“(3) The petition may be filed in any court having naturalization jurisdiction, regardless of the residence of the petitioner;
“(4) If there is attached to the petition, at the time of filing, a certificate from a naturalization examiner stating that the petitioner has appeared before him for examination, the petition may be heard at any time after filing.
*997 “(b) After her" naturalization such woman shall have the same, citizenship status, as if her marriage, or the loss of citizenship by her husband, as the case may be, had taken place after this section, as amended, takes effect [July 3, 1930].”

She is a native of'Canada, a subject of Great Britain, born in Van Camp Mills, Canada, January 19, 1867, of alien parents: She claims to have resided in the United. States continuously since September, 1912. She migrated with her' parents and. other members of her family to the United' States in 1883, settling in Pembina county, Dakota Territory. On May 9, 1888,' she married Ezra Sproule, a native and citizen of Canada, at Drayton, N. D. Shortly after the marriage, they removed to Canada, returning to the territory of North Dakota in September, 1888. They returned to Canada in the fall of 1890, and there took up their permanent domicile, returning to Los Angeles, Cal., in September, 1912, where the petitioner has resided ever since.

The husband has never been naturalized in this country. The applicant states that he died in 1923, but has been unable to produce evidence of his death. The petitioner’s father, Reuben Van Camp, declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States in the district court of Pembina county, Dakota Territory, on September 30, 1879, but did not complete his naturalization during her minority.

The petitioner claims that, through this declaration of intention, she acquired inchoate right to citizenship, which later matured into citizenship when the Territory of Dakota was admitted into the Union on November 2, 1889, — a citizenship which she did not lose by .marriage to a British subject.

The position of the petitioner is rather inconsistent. She applied for citizenship under an act which is commonly called the “Repatriation Act” (40 Stat. 340) and which implies loss of citizenship by native-born or naturalized Americans through marriage to aliens. Her contention, in the briefs filed in her behalf, is that she has always been an American citizen, and that, if her petition for naturalization is denied, it be done upon the ground that she is already a citizen of the United States.

As whatever rights she acquired deraign from her father’s declaration of intention, it is well to bear in mind that the basis of citizenship in the United States is the English doctrine under which nationality meant birth within the. allegiance of the king. United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) 169. US. 649, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. 890. The control over naturalization, vested in the Congress by the Constitution, gave to it the power to enact laws granting citizenship to persons of alien birth residing within the United States and thereby conferring upon them all the rights of native-born persons. Constitution of the United States, art. 1, § 8, cl. 4; Luria v. United States (1913) 231 U.S. 9, 34 S.Ct. 10, 58 L.Ed. 101. The Constitution sought to overcome one of the colonists’ grievances against the English king. In the Declaration of Independence, he was charged with “obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners.”

The declaration of intention (8 U.S. C.A. § 373) is merely the first step in the process of naturalization. It does not confer citizenship.

As said by our own Circuit Court of Appeals in Johnson v. Nickoloff (C.C.A.9, 1931) 52 F.(2d) 1074, 1075: “A person does not become a citizen of the United States until the procedure of naturalization has been fully complied with and an order divesting him of .his former nationality and making him a citizen of the United States, has been signed by a judge of a court having jurisdiction. 26 Op.Attys.Gen. 611.”'

Although the declarant acquires an inchoate nationality, he remains an alien until the naturalization is completed. Wilson on International Law (2d Ed.) 1927, p. 136; In re Poisson (C.C.Cal.1908) 159 F. 283; In re Moses (C.C.N.Y.1897) 83 F. 995; Frick v. Lewis (C.C.A.6, 1912) 195 F. 693; United States v. Bell (D.C.N.Y.1918) 248 F. 992. And this status is not changed by the fact that the law of the state of the declarant’s residence may confer upon him the elective franchise or other privileges of citizenship, or even the right to hold public office. An alien he remains. City of Minneapolis v. Reum (C.C.A.8, 1893) 56 F. 576.

The rights flowing from the declaration of intention are strictly construed. They will not be extended beyond the obvious limits of the proceeding. Terrace v. Thompson (1923) 263 U.S. 197, 44 S.Ct. 15, 68 L.Ed. 255; U. S. v. Manzi (1928) 276 U.S. 463, 48 S.Ct. 328, 72 L.Ed. 654.

*998 In the light of these principles, we consider the grounds upon which the petitioner relies in seeking naturalization.

The act under which the petition is, filed seeks to restore citizenship to women who, having been American citizens, by birth or naturalization, have lost it through marriage to an alien or through the husband’s loss of citizenship.

From the beginning of our national life, legislative bodies have sought to recognize the right of American citizens to expatriate themselves, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to preserve to those who reside abroad without actually expatriating-themselves the right of American citizenship against the claims of countries of their residenc'e. Thus we find that in 1786, Virginia passed an act providing, that any citizen might relinquish his citizenship and depart from the commonwealth and “thenceforth be deemed no citizen.” See Scott’s Cases on International Law (1922) p.

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Bluebook (online)
19 F. Supp. 995, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1794, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/petition-of-sproule-casd-1937.