Rogers v. Bellei/Opinion of the Court

by Harry Blackmun

United States Supreme Court

401 U.S. 815

Rogers  v.  Bellei

 Argued: Jan. 15, 1970. --- Decided: Nov 12, 1970

Under constitutional challenge here, primarily on Fifth Amendment due process grounds, but also on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, is § 301(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of June 27, 1952, 66 Stat. 236, 8 U.S.C. § 1401(b).

Section 301(a) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), defines those persons who 'shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.' Paragraph (7) of § 301(a) includes in that definition a person born abroad 'of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States' who has met specified conditions of residence in this country. Section 301(b), however, provides that one who is a citizen at birth under § 301(a)(7) shall lose his citizenship unless, after age 14 and before age 28, he shall come to the United States and be physically present here continuously for at least five years. We quote the statute in the margin. ^[1]

The plan thus adopted by Congress with respect to a person of this classification was to bestow citizenship at birth but to take it away upon the person's failure to comply with a post-age-14 and pre-age-28 residential requirement. It is this deprival of citizenship, once bestowed, that is under attack here.

* The facts are stipulated:

1. The appellee, Aldo Mario Bellei (hereinafter the plaintiff), was born in Italy on December 22, 1939. He is now 31 years of age.

2. The plaintiff's father has always been a citizen of Italy and never has acquired United States citizenship. The plaintiff's mother, however, was born in Philadelphia in 1915 and thus was a native-born United States citizen. She has retained that citizenship. Moreover, she has fulfilled the requirement of § 301(a)(7) for physical presence in the United States for 10 years, more than five of which were after she attained the age of 14 years. The mother and father were married in Philadelphia on the mother's 24th birthday, March 14, 1939. Nine days later, on March 23, the newlyweds departed for Italy. They have resided there ever since.

3. By Italian law the plaintiff acquired Italian citizenship upon his birth in Italy. He retains that citizenship. He also acquired United States citizenship at his birth under Rev.Stat. § 1993, as amended by the Act of May 24, 1934, § 1, 48 Stat. 797, then in effect. ^[2] That version of the statute, as does the present one, contained a residence condition applicable to a child born abroad with one alien parent.

4. The plaintiff resided in Italy from the time of his birth until recently. He currently resides in England, where he has employment as an electronics engineer with an organization engaged in the NATO defense program.

5. The plaintiff has come to the United States five different times. He was physically present here during the following periods:

May 26 to June 13, 1965.

On the first two occasions, when the plaintiff was a boy of eight and 11, he entered the country with his mother on her United States passport. On the next two occasions, when he was 15 and just under 23, he entered on his own United States passport and was admitted as a citizen of this country. His passport was first issued on June 27, 1952. His last application approval, in August 1961, contains the notation 'Warned abt. 301(b).' The plaintiff's United States passport was periodically approved to and including December 22, 1962, his 23d birthday.

6. On his fifth visit to the United States, in 1965, the plaintiff entered with an Italian passport and as an alien visitor. He had just been married and he came with his bride to visit his maternal grandparents.

7. The plaintiff was warned in writing by United States authorities of the impact of § 301(b) when he was in this country in January 1963 and again in November of that year when he was in Italy. Sometime after February 11, 1964, he was orally advised by the American Embassy at Rome that he had lost his United States citizenship pursuant to § 301(b). In November 1966 he was so notified in writing by the American Consul in Rome when the plaintiff requested another American passport.

8. On March 28, 1960, plaintiff registered under the United States Selective Service laws with the American Consul in Rome. At that time he already was 20 years of age. He took in Taly, and passed, a United States Army physical examination. On December 11, 1963, he was asked to report for induction in the District of Columbia. This induction, however, was then deferred because of his NATO defense program employment. At the time of deferment he was warned of the danger of losing his United States citizenship if he did not comply with the residence requirement. After February 14, 1964, Selective Service advised him by letter that, due to the loss of his citizenship, he had no further obligation for United States military service.

Plaintiff thus concededly failed to comply with the conditions imposed by § 301(b) of the Act.

The plaintiff instituted the present action against the Secretary of State in the Southern District of New York. He asked that the Secretary be enjoined from carrying out and enforcing § 301(b), and also requested a declaratory judgment that § 301(b) is unconstitutional as violative of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, the Eighth Amendment's Punishment Clause, and the Ninth Amendment, and that he is and always has been a native-born United States citizen. Because, under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e), the New York venue was improper, the case was transferred to the District of Columbia. 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a).

A three-judge District Court was convened. With the facts stipulated, cross motions for summary judgment were filed. The District Court ruled that § 301(b) was unconstitutional, citing Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253, 87 S.Ct. 1660, 18 L.Ed.2d 757 (1967), and Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 84 S.Ct. 1187, 12 L.Ed.2d 218 (1964), and sustained the plaintiff's summary judgment motion. Bellei v. Rusk, 296 F.Supp. 1247 (D.C.1969). This Court noted probable jurisdiction, 396 U.S. 811, 90 S.Ct. 69, 24 L.Ed.2d 64 (1969), and, after argument at the 1969 Term, restored the case to the calendar for reargument. 397 U.S. 1060, 90 S.Ct. 1494, 25 L.Ed.2d 682 (1970).

The two cases primarily relied upon by the three-judge District Court are, of course, of particular significance here.

Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 84 S.Ct. 1187, 12 L.Ed.2d 218 (1964). Mrs. Schneider, a German national by birth, acquired United States citizenship derivatively through her mother's naturalization in the United States. She came to this country as a small child with her parents and remained here until she finished college. She then went abroad for graduate work, was engaged to a German national, married in Germany, and stayed in residence there. She declared that she had no intention of returning to the United States. In 1959, a passport was denied by the State Department on the ground that she had lost her United States citizenship under the specific provisions of § 352(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1484(a)(1), by continuous residence for three years in a foreign state of which she was formerly a national. The Court, by a five-to-three vote, held the statute violative of Fifth Amendment due process because there was no like restriction against foreign residence by native-born citizens.

The dissent (Mr. Justice Clark, joined by Justices Harlan and White) based its position on what it regarded as the long acceptance of expatriating naturalized citizens who voluntarily return to residence in their native lands; possible international complications; past decisions approving the power of Congress to enact statutes of that type; and the Constitution's distinctions between native-born and naturalized citizens.

Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253, 87 S.Ct. 1660, 18 L.Ed.2d 757 (1967). Mr. Afroyim, a Polish national by birth, immigrated to the United States at age 19 and after 14 years here acquired United States citizenship by naturalization. Twenty-four years later he went to Israel and voted in a political election there. In 1960 a passport was denied him by the State Department on the ground that he had lost his United States citizenship under the specific provisions of § 349(a)(5) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(5), by his foreign voting. The Court, by a five-to-four vote, held that the Fourteenth Amendment's definition of citizenship was significant; that Congress has no 'general power, express or implied, to take away an American citizen's citizenship without his assent,' 387 U.S., at 257, 87 S.Ct., at 1662; that Congress' power is to provide a uniform rule of naturalization and, when once exercised with respect to the individual, is exhausted, citing Mr. Chief Justice Marshall's well-known but not uncontroversial dictum in Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 827, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824); and that the 'undeniable purpose' of the Fourteenth Amendment was to make the recently conferred 'citizenship of Negroes permanent and secure' and 'to put citizenship beyond the power of any governmental unite to destroy,' 387 U.S., at 263, 87 S.Ct., at 1665. Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44, 78 S.Ct. 568, 2 L.Ed.2d 603 (1958), a five-to-four holding within the decade and precisely to the opposite effect, was overruled.

The dissent (Mr. Justice Harlan, joined by Justices Clark, Stewart, and White) took issue with the Court's claim of support in the legislative history, would elucidate the Marshall dictum, and observed that the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment did not deprive Congress of the power to expatriate on permissible grounds consistent with 'other relevant commands' of the Constitution. 387 U.S., at 292, 87 S.Ct., at 1680.

It is to be observed that both Mrs. Schneider and Mr. Afroyim had resided in this country for years. Each had acquired United States citizenship here by the naturalization process (in one case derivative and in the other direct) prescribed by the National Legislature. Each, in short, was covered explicitly by the Fourteenth Amendment's very first sentence: '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.' This, of course, accounts for the Court's emphasis in Afroyim upon 'Fourteenth Amendment citizenship.' 387 U.S., at 262, 87 S.Ct., at 1665.

The statute culminating in § 301 merit review:

1. The very first Congress, at its Second Session, proceeded to implement its power, under the Constitution's Art. I, § 8, cl. 4, to 'establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization' by producing the Act of March 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 103. That statute, among other things, stated, 'And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States * * *.'

2. A like provision, with only minor changes in phrasing and with the same emphasis on paternal residence, was continuously in effect through three succeeding naturalization Acts. Act of January 29, 1795, § 3, 1 Stat. 415; Act of April 14, 1802, § 4, 2 Stat. 155; Act of February 10, 1855, c. 71, § 1, 10 Stat. 604. The only significant difference is that the 1790, 1795, and 1802 Acts read retrospectively, while the 1855 Act reads prospectively as well. See Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S. 657, 664, 47 S.Ct. 772, 774, 71 L.Ed. 1284 (1927), and Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308, 311, 81 S.Ct. 1336, 1338, 6 L.Ed.2d 313 (1961).

3. Section 1 of the 1855 Act, with changes unimportant here, was embodied as § 1993 of the Revised Statutes of 1874. ^[3]

4. The Act of March 2, 1907, § 6, 34 Stat. 1229, provided that all children born abroad who were citizens under Rev.Stat. § 1993 and who continued to reside elsewhere, in order to receive governmental protection, were to record at age 18 their intention to become residents and remain citizens of the United States and were to take the oath of allegiance upon attaining their majority. ^[4]

5. The change in § 1993 effected by the Act of May 24, 1934, is reflected in n. 2, supra. This eliminated the theretofore imposed restriction to the paternal parent and prospectively granted citizenship, subject to a five-year continuous residence requirement and an oath, to the foreign-born child of either a citizen father or a citizen mother. This was the form of the statute at the time of plaintiff's birth on December 22, 1939.

6. The Nationality Act of 1940, § 201, 54 Stat. 1138, contained a similar condition directed to a total of five years' residence in the United States between the ages of 13 and 21. ^[5]

7. The Immigration and Nationality Act, by its § 407, 66 Stat. 281, became law in December 1952. Its § 301(b) contains a five years' continuous residence condition (alleviated, with the 1957 amendment, see n. 1, by an allowance for absences less than 12 months in the aggregate) directed to the period between 14 and 28 years of age.

The statutory pattern, therefore, developed and expanded from (a) one, established in 1790 and enduring through the Revised Statutes and until 1934, where citizenship was specifically denied to the child born abroad of a father who never resided in the United States; to (b), in 1907, a governmental protection condition for the child born of an American citizen father and residing abroad, dependent upon a declaration of intent and the oath of allegiance at majority; to (c), in 1934, a condition, for the child born abroad of one United States citizen parent and one alien parent, of five years' continuous residence in the United States before age 18 and the oath of allegiance within six months after majority; to (d), in 1940, a condition, for that child, of five years' residence here, not necessarily continuous, between ages 13 and 21; to (e), in 1952, a condition, for that child, of five years' continuous residence here, with allowance, between ages 14 and 28.

The application of these respective statutes to a person in plaintiff Bellei's position produces the following results:

1. Not until 1934 would that person have had any conceivable claim to United States citizenship. For more than a century and a half no statute was of assistance. Maternal citizenship afforded no benefit. One may observe, too, that if Mr. Bellei had been born in 1933, instead of in 1939, he would have no claim even today. Montana v. Kennedy, supra.

2. Despite the recognition of the maternal root by the 1934 amendment, in effect at the time of plaintiff's birth, and despite the continuing liberalization of the succeeding statutes, the plaintiff still would not be entitled to full citizenship because, although his mother met the condition for her residence in the United States, the plaintiff never did fulfill the residential condition imposed for him by any of the statutes.

3. This is so even though the liberalizing 1940 and 1952 statutes, enacted after the plaintiff's birth, were applicable by their terms to one born abroad subsequent to May 24, 1934, the date of the 1934 Act, and were available to the plaintiff. See nn. 5 and 1, supra.

Thus, in summary, it may be said fairly that, for the most part, each successive statute, as applied to a foreign-born child of one United States citizen parent, moved in a direction of leniency for the child. For plaintiff Bellei the statute changed from complete disqualification to citizenship upon a condition subsequent, with that condition being expanded and made less onerous, and, after his birth, with the succeeding liberalizing provisions made applicable to him in replacement of the stricter statute in effect when he was born. The plaintiff nevertheless failed to satisfy any form of the condition.

It is evident that Congress felt itself possessed of the power to grant citizenship to the foreign born and at the same time to impose qualifications and conditions for that citizenship. Of course, Congress obviously felt that way, too, about the two expatriation provisions invalidated by the decisions in Schneider and Afroyim.

We look again, then, at the Constitution and further indulge in history's assistance:

Of initial significance, because of its being the foundation stone of the Court's decisional structure in Afroyim, and perhaps by a process of after-the-fact osmosis, of the earlier Schneider as well, is the Fourteenth Amendment's opening sentence:

'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.'

The central fact, in our weighing of the plaintiff's to continuing and therefore current United States citizenship, is that he was born abroad. He was not born in the United States. He was not naturalized in the United States. And he has not been subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. All this being so, it seems indisputable that the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment has no application to plaintiff Bellei. He simply is not a Fourteenth-Amendment-first-sentence citizen. His posture contrasts with that of Mr. Afroyim, who was naturalized in the United States, and with that of Mrs. Schneider, whose citizenship was derivative by her presence here and by her mother's naturalization here.

The plaintiff's claim thus must center in the statutory power of Congress and in the appropriate exercise of that power within the restrictions of any pertinent constitutional provisions other than the Fourteenth Amendment's first sentence.

The reach of congressional power in this area is readily apparent:

1. Over 70 years ago the Court, in an opinion by Mr. Justice Gray, reviewed and discussed early English statutes relating to rights of inheritance and of citizenship of persons born abroad of parents who were British subjects, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 668-671, 18 S.Ct. 456, 464-465, 42 L.Ed. 890 (1898). The Court concluded that 'naturalization by descent' was not a common-law concept but was dependent, instead, upon statutory enactment. The statutes examined were 25 Edw. 3, Stat. 2 (1350); 29 Car. 2, c. 6 (1677); 7 Anne, c. 5, § 3 (1708); 4 Geo. 2, c. 21 (1731); and 13 Geo. 3, c. 21 (1773). Later Mr. Chief Justice Taft, speaking for a unanimous Court, referred to this 'very learned and useful opinion of Mr. Justice Gray' and observed 'that birth within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Crown, and of the United States, as the successor of the Crown, fixed nationality, and that there could be no change in this rule of law except by statute * * *.' Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S., at 660, 47 S.Ct., at 773. He referred to the cited English statutes and stated, 'These statutes applied to the colonies before the War of Independence.'

We thus have an acknowledgment that our law in this area follows English concepts with an acceptance of the jus soli, that is, that the place of birth governs citizenship status except as modified by statute.

2. The Constitution as originally adopted contained no definition of United States citizenship. However, it referred to citizenship in general terms and in varying contexts: Art. I, § 2, House; Art. I, § 3, cl. 3, qualifications for Senators; Art. II, § 1, cl. 5, Art. III, § 2, cl. 1, citizenship as af-States. And, as has been noted, Art. Article III, § 2, cl. 1, citizenship as affecting judicial power of the United States. And, as has been noted, Article I, § 8, cl. 4, vested Congress with the power to 'establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.' The historical reviews in the Afroyim opinions provide an intimation that the Constitution's lack of definitional specificity may well have been attributable in part to the desire to avoid entanglement in the then-existing controversy between concepts of state and national citizenship and with the difficult question of the status of Negro slaves.

In any event, although one might have expected a definition of citizenship in constitutional terms, none was embraced in the original document or, indeed, in any of the amendments adopted prior to the War Between the States.

3. Apart from the passing reference to the 'natural born Citizen' in the Constitution's Art. II, § 1, cl. 5, we have, in the Civil Rights Act of April 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27, the first statutory recognition and concomitant formal definition of the citizenship status of the native born: '(A)ll persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States * * *.' This, of course, found immediate expression in the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, with expansion to '(a)ll persons born or naturalized in the United States * * *.' As has been noted above, the amendment's 'undeniable purpose' was 'to make citizenship of Negroes permanent and secure' and not subject to change by mere statute. Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S., at 263, 87 S.Ct., at 1665. See H. Flack, Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment 88-94 (1908).

Mr. Justice Gray has observed that the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment was 'declaratory of existing rights, and affirmative of existing law,' so far as the qualifications of being born in the United States, being naturalized in the United States, and being subject to its jurisdiction are concerned. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S., at 688, 18 S.Ct., at 472. Then follows a most significant sentence:

'But it (the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment) has not touched the acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents; and has left that subject to be regulated, as it had always been, by Congress, in the exercise of the power conferred by the constitution to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.'

Thus, at long last, there emerged an express constitutional definition of citizenship. But it was one restricted to the combination of three factors, each and all significant: birth in the United States, naturalization in the United States, and subjection to the jurisdiction of the United States. The definition obviously did not apply to any acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of an American parent. That type, and any other not covered by the Fourteenth Amendment, was necessarily left to proper congressional action.

4. The Court has recognized that existence of this power. It has observed, 'No alien has the slightest right to naturalization unless all statutory requirements are compiled with * * *.' United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U.S. 472, 475, 37 S.Ct. 422, 425, 61 L.Ed. 853 (1917). See United States v. Ness, 245 U.S. 319, 38 S.Ct. 118, 62 L.Ed. 321 (1917); Maney v. United States, 278 U.S. 17, 49 S.Ct. 15, 73 L.Ed. 156 (1928). And the Court has specifically recognized the power of Congress not to grant a United States citizen the right to transmit citizenship by descent. As hereinabove noted, persons born abroad, even of United States citizen fathers who, however, acquired American citizenship after the effective date of the 1802 Act, were aliens. Congress responded to that situation only by enacting the 1855 statute. Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S., at 311, 81 S.Ct., at 1338. But more than 50 years had expired during which, because of the withholding of that benefit by Congress, citizenship by such descent was not bestowed. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S., at 673-674, 18 S.Ct. at 466-467. Then, too, the Court has recognized that until the 1934 Act the transmission of citizenship to one born abroad was restricted to the child of a qualifying American father, and withheld completely from the child of a United States citizen mother and an alien father. Montana v. Kennedy, supra.

Further, it is conceded here both that Congress may withhold citizenship from persons like plaintiff Bellei ^[6] and may prescribe a period of residence in the United States as a condition precedent without constitutional question. ^[7]

Thus we have the presence of congressional power in this area, its exercise, and the Court's specific recognition of that power and of its having been properly withheld or properly used in particular situations.

This takes us, then, to the issue of the constitutionality of the exercise of that congressional power when it is used to impose the condition subsequent that confronted plaintiff Bellei. We conclude that its imposition is not unreasonable, arbitrary, or unlawful, and that it withstands the present constitutional challenge.

1. The Congress has an appropriate concern with problems attendant on dual nationality. Savorgnan v. United States, 338 U.S. 491, 500, 70 S.Ct. 292, 297, 94 L.Ed. 287 (1950); N. Bar-Yaacov, Dual Nationality xi and 4 (1961). These problems are particularly acute when it is the father who is the child's alien parent and the father chooses to have his family reside in the country of his own nationality. The child is reared, at best, in an atmosphere of divided loyalty. We cannot say that a concern that the child's own primary allegiance is to the country of his birth and of his father's allegiance is either misplaced or arbitrary.

The duality also creates problems for the governments involved. Mr. Justice Brennan recognized this when, concurring in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 187, 83 S.Ct. 554, 577, 9 L.Ed.2d 644 (1963), a case concerning native-born citizens, he observed: 'We have recognized the entanglements which may stem from dual allegiance * * *.' In a famous case Mr. Justice Douglas wrote of the problem of dual citizenship. Tomoya Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717, 723-736, 72 S.Ct. 950, 955-962, 96 L.Ed. 1249 (1952). He noted that '(o)ne who has a dual nationality will be subject to claims from both nations, claims which at times may be competing or conflicting,' id., at 733, 72 S.Ct., at 960; that one with dual nationality cannot turn that status 'into a fair-weather citizenship,' id., at 736, 72 S.Ct., at 962; and that '(c) ircumstances may compel one who has a dual nationality to do acts which otherwise would not be compatible with the obligations of American citizenship,' ibid. The District Court in this very case conceded:

'It is a legitimate concern of Congress that those who bear American citizenship and receive its benefits have some nexus to the United States.' 296 F.Supp., at 1252.

2. There are at least intimations in the decided cases that a dual national constitutionally may be required to make an election. In Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 329, 59 S.Ct. 884, 887, 83 L.Ed. 1320 (1939), the Court observed that a native-born citizen who had acquired dual nationality during minority through his parents' foreign naturalization abroad did not lose his United States citizenship 'provided that on attaining majority he elects to retain that citizenship and to return to the United States to assume its duties.' In Tomoya Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S., at 734, 72 S.Ct., at 961, the Court noted that a dual national 'under certain circumstances' can be deprived of his American citizenship through an Act of Congress. In Mandoli v. Acheson, 344 U.S. 133, 138, 73 S.Ct. 135, 137, 97 L.Ed. 146 (1952), the Court took pains to observe that there was no statute in existence imposing an election upon that dual nationality litigant.

These cases do not flatly say that a duty to elect may be constitutionally imposed. They surely indicate, however, that this is possible, and in Mandoli the holding was based on the very absence of a statute and not on any theory of unconstitutionality. And all three of these cases concerned persons who were born here, that is, persons who possessed Fourteenth Amendment citizenship; they did not concern a person, such as plaintiff Bellei, whose claim to citizenship is wholly, and only statutory.

3. The statutory development outlined in Part IV above, by itself and without reference to the underlying legislative history, committee reports, and other studies, reveals a careful consideration by the Congress of the problems attendant upon dual nationality of a person born abroad. This was purposeful and not accidental. It was legislation structured with care and in the light of then apparent problems.

4. The solution to the dual nationality dilemma provided by the Congress by way of required residence surely is not unreasonably. It may not be the best that could be devised, but here, too, we cannot say that it is irrational or arbitrary or unfair. Congress first has imposed a condition precedent in that the citizen parent must have been in the United States or its possessions not less than 10 years, at least five of which are after attaining age 14. It then has imposed, as to the foreign-born child himself, the condition subsequent as to residence here. The Court already had emphasized the importance of residence in this country as the talisman of dedicated attachment, Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S., at 666-667, 47 S.Ct., at 774-775, and said:

'It is not too much to say, therefore, that Congress at that time (when Rev.Stat. § 1993 was under consideration) attached more importance to actual residence in the United States as indicating a basis for citizenship than it did to descent from those who had been born citizens of the colonies or of the states before the Constitution. As said by Mr. Fish, when Secretary of State, to Minister Washburn, June 28, 1873, in speaking of this very proviso, 'the heritable blood of citizenship was thus associated unmistakeably with residence within the country which was thus recognized as essential to full citizenship.' Foreign Relations of the United States, Pt. 1, 1873, p. 259.' 274 U.S., at 665-666, 47 S.Ct., at 774.

The same policy is reflected in the required period of residence here for aliens seeking naturalization. 8 U.S.C. § 1427(a).

5. We feel that it does not make good constitutional sense, or comport with logic, to say, on the one hand, that Congress may impose a condition precedent, with no constitutional complication, and yet be powerless to impose precisely the same condition subsequent. Any such distinction, of course, must rest, if it has any basis at all, on the asserted 'premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity and are coextensive,' Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S., at 165, 84 S.Ct., at 1189, and on the announcement that Congress has no 'power, express or implied, to take away an American citizen's citizenship without his assent,' Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S., at 257, 87 S.Ct., at 1662. But, as pointed out above, these were utterances bottomed upon Fourteenth Amendment citizenship and that Amendment's direct reference to 'persons born or naturalized in the United States.' We do not accept the notion that those utterances are now to be judicially extended to citizenship not based upon the Fourteenth Amendment and to make citizenship an absolute. That it is not an absolute is demonstrated by the fact that even Fourteenth Amendment citizenship by naturalization, when unlawfully procured, may be set aside. Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S., at 267 n. 23, 87 S.Ct., at 1667.

6. A contrary holding would convert what is congressional generosity into something unanticipated and obviously undesired by the Congress. Our National Legislature indulged the foreign-born child with presumptive citizenship subject to subsequent satisfaction of a reasonable residence requirement, rather than to deny him citizenship outright, as concededly it had the power to do, and relegate the child, if he desired American citizenship, to the more arduous requirements of the usual naturalization process. The plaintiff here would force the Congress to choose between unconditional conferment of United States citizenship at birth and deferment of citizenship until a condition precedent is fulfilled. We are not convinced that the Constitution requires so rigid a choice. If it does, the congressional response seems obvious.

7. Neither are we persuaded that a condition subsequent in this area impresses one with 'second-class citizenship.' That cliche is too handy and too easy, and, like most cliche s, can be misleading. That the condition subsequent may be beneficial is apparent in the light of the conceded fact that citizenship to this plaintiff was fully deniable. The proper emphasis is on what the statute permits him to gain from the possible starting point of noncitizenship, not on what he claims to lose from the possible starting point of full citizenship to which he has no constitutional right in the first place. His citizenship, while it although conditional, is not 'second-class.'

8. The plaintiff is not stateless. His Italian citizenship remains. He has lived practically all his life in Italy. He has never lived in this country; although he has visited here five times, the stipulated facts contain no indication that he ever will live here. He asserts no claim of ignorance or of mistake or even of hardship. He was warned several times of the provision of the statute and of his need to take up residence in the United States prior to his 23d birthday.

We hold that § 301(b) has no constitutional infirmity in its application to plaintiff Bellei. The judgment of the District Court is reversed.

Judgment reversed.

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice MARSHALL join, dissenting.

Notes

1. 'Sec. 301. (a) The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
2. 'Any child hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such child is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to any such child unless the citizen father or citizen mother, as the case may be, has resided in the United States previous to the birth of such child. In cases where one of the parents is an alien, the right of citizenship shall not descend unless the child comes to the United States and resides therein for at least five years continuously immediately previous to his eighteenth birthday, and unless, within six months after the child's twenty-first birthday, he or she shall take an oath of allegiance to the United States of America as prescribed by the Bureau of Naturalization.'
3. 'All children heretofore born or hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or may be at the time of their birth citizens thereof, are declared to be citizens of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States.'
4. 'That all children born outside the limits of the United States who are citizens thereof in accordance with the provisions of section nineteen hundred and ninety-three of the Revised Statutes of the United States and who continue to reside outside the United States shall, in order to receive the protection of this Government, be required upon reaching the age of eighteen years to record at an American consulate their intention to become residents and remain citizens of the United States and shall be further required to take the oath of allegiance to the United States upon attaining their majority.'
5. 'Sec. 201. The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
6. At oral argument plaintiff's counsel conceded that 'Congress need not vest a person in his position with citizenship if it chooses not to do so.' Tr. of Oral Rearg. 27. Counsel for the amici sympathetic with the plaintiff's cause made a like concession. Id., at 36.
7. Id., at 26.