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Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967), was a United States Supreme Court decision that set an important legal precedent that a United States citizen cannot have his or her citizenship taken away involuntarily. 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States...
Stare decisis (Latin: , Anglicisation: , to stand by things decided) (more fully, stare decisis et non quieta movere) is a Latin legal term, used in common law to express the notion that prior court decisions must be recognized as precedents, according to case law. ...
The word citizen may refer to: A person with a citizenship Citizen Watch Co. ...
Facts Beys Afroyim was a Jewish artist born in 1893 as Ephraim Bernstein in Riki, Poland. In 1912 he immigrated to the United States. In 1926 he became naturalized as a U.S. citizen. In 1950 he moved to Israel. He voted in an Israeli election in 1951. In 1960, Afroyim tried to renew his U.S. passport, but the State Department refused on the ground that he had lost his citizenship by voting in a foreign election. Afroyim sued Dean Rusk in his official capacity as Secretary of State and head of the State Department, which is responsible both for issuing passports and for dealing with loss of citizenship. Jews (Hebrew: יהודי×, Yehudim) are followers of Judaism or, more generally, members of the Jewish people (also known as the Jewish nation, or the Children of Israel), an ethno-religious group descended from the ancient Israelites and converts who joined their religion at various times and locations. ...
Look up Artist in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Artist Artist is a descriptive term applied to a person who engages in an activity deemed to be an art. ...
1893 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...
1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Naturalization is the act whereby a person voluntarily and actively acquires a nationality which is not his or her nationality at birth. ...
1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...
An election is a decision making process whereby people vote for preferred political candidates or parties to act as representatives in government. ...
1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ...
1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...
The United States Department of State, often referred to as the State Department, is the Cabinet-level foreign affairs agency of the United States government, equivalent to foreign ministries in other countries. ...
David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909 – December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. ...
In several countries, Secretary of State is a senior government position. ...
Issue At various times before 1967, U.S. law had provided for multiple ways for U.S. citizens to lose their citizenship, possibly without their consent, for example: - Loss of citizenship could be used as a punishment (for example, for military desertion)
- Women might lose their citizenship if they married a non-U.S. citizen (on the assumption that they would acquire their husband's nationality)
- U.S. citizens who became citizens of foreign countries might automatically lose their U.S. citizenship (see Bancroft Treaties)
- Naturalized citizens who established a residence outside the United States might lose their citizenship
- U.S. citizens who voted in a foreign election might lose their U.S. citizenship (this is the law that affected Afroyim)
However, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says that: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Read literally, this would seem to imply that anyone born or naturalized in the United States is a U.S. citizen for life. The Bancroft treaties, also called the Bancroft conventions, were a series of agreements between the United States and other countries that 1) recognized the right of each partys nationals to become naturalized citizens of the other; and 2) defined circumstances in which naturalized persons were legally presumed to have...
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments and includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. ...
The Supreme Court had to decide whether it was constitutional to take away the citizenship of someone born or naturalized in the United States.
Majority opinion The court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that Afroyim's citizenship could not be taken away without his consent. The majority relied strongly on the history of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Amendment was written soon after the U.S. Civil War, in order to secure the rights of the freed slaves. At this time, African Americans had already been made U.S. citizens by the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the original draft of the Amendment contained no definition of citizenship. However, some Senators were worried that a future Congress might reverse the Act, so they inserted the first clause of the Amendment in order to ensure that the blacks' citizenship was "permanent and secure". This guarantee would have been meaningless if Congress retained the power to strip citizens of their citizenship without their consent. The American Civil War was fought in the United States from 1861 until 1865 between the northern states, popularly referred to as the U.S., the Union, the North, or the Yankees; and the seceding southern states, commonly referred to as the Confederate States of America, the CSA, the Confederacy...
African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ...
In March 1866, the Republican United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which gave further rights to the freed slaves after the end of the American Civil War. ...
The majority also pointed to the Titles of Nobility Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment from the early nineteenth century. It was passed by Congress in 1810 but never ratified by the states. This amendment would have removed the citizenship of any U.S. citizen who accepted a title of nobility from a foreign government. The majority reasoned that the fact that this was passed as a constitutional amendment, rather than a simple law, shows that Congress did not believe that it had the power to strip U.S. citizenship from anyone. The Titles of Nobility Amendment (TONA) was, and remains, a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. ...
1810 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...
Minority opinion
Effect The decision had the following effects: - No one who had become a U.S. citizen through birth in the United States or through naturalization could have their citizenship taken away without his or her consent.
- The concept of dual citizenship, which was previously strongly opposed by the U.S. government, has gradually become more accepted. State Department policy, which historically had been extremely dubious of dual citizenship, as of 2006 goes beyond the decision of Afroyim in allowing freedom to U.S. citizens to take advantage of multiple citizenships.
The decision did not change these other aspects of U.S. immigration law: Multiple citizenship is simultaneous citizenship in two or more countries (whether it is recognized by all countries or not). ...
- Someone who committed fraud in the naturalization process (for example, by lying about themselves to U.S. immigration services) could still have their naturalization voided on the grounds that they never truly were naturalized as U.S. citizens.
- Naturalization applicants could still be (and indeed still are, as of 2006) required to renounce any previous citizenship under oath upon becoming a U.S. citizen. A naturalized citizen who behaved in a manner inconsistent with the oath (for example, by continuing to use his or her old passport) might still be liable to loss of citizenship on the grounds that oath was not taken in good faith and hence the naturalization was fraudulent. However, U.S. State Department policy as of 2006 is not to pursue such cases.
- U.S. citizens who became naturalized in a foreign country might lose their citizenship if the foreign country required them to renounce their U.S. citizenship (this renunciation could be seen as consent to loss of U.S. citizenship). However, U.S. State Department policy as of 2006 is not to pursue such cases. (This did not apply to Afroyim because, as a Jew under Israel's Law of Return, he could take advantage of Israeli citizenship without having to go through any ceremony or swear any oath).
Note also that the determination of whether a U.S. citizen did indeed give consent to loss of citizenship can be made upon a preponderance of evidence, rather than under the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. The Law of Return (חוק השבות) is Israeli legislation that allows Jews to settle in Israel and gain citizenship. ...
for other uses please see Crime (disambiguation) A crime is an act that violates a political or moral law. ...
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