Naturalization

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

Stop using the term “naturalization” to mean the process of someone becoming a citizen.

The eligibility requirements for voting and holding public office must not distinguish between natural-born citizens and naturalized citizens.

Citizenship must be irrevocable.

A residency permit can be revoked only after the immigrant has been convicted of a felony and served the consequence (money penalty and possible prison time). It cannot be revoked for misdemeanors.

A temporary work visa, student visa, or tourist visa can be revoked after the immigrant has been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor and served the consequence (money penalty and possible prison time).

Intent:

To ensure that all citizens have a firm and reliable foundation for their civic life.

Discussion:

In the United States, there is a legal process called “naturalization” which means the process of becoming a citizen of the United States, as opposed to staying as a legal resident but not a citizen.

However, currently when a person is “naturalized”, they are still not considered the same as a “natural-born” citizen. The most prominent example of this is in the Constitution, where it states “No Person except a natural born Citizen… shall be eligible to the Office of President”, and because of that many people would say that an immigrant who was “naturalized” is not eligible to be President because they are not “natural-born”, regardless of the plain and obvious meanings of these terms.

If being “naturalized” means to start considering someone the same as a natural-born citizens, then a naturalized citizen should be eligible to be elected President. But if a naturalized citizens is still not eligible to be elected president, then that citizen really isn’t being treated the same as a natural-born citizen, and the term “naturalization” is meaningless.

Naturalization is also meaningless if the government is able to revoke it for any reason. Citizenship cannot be revoked from natural-born citizens, and if naturalized citizens are treated the same as natural-born citizens then their citizenship also should not be revokable. Unfortunately, the government has revoked citizenship from naturalized people in the past.

A citizen makes a pledge of allegiance and agrees to follow the law, so if a citizen is convicted of a felony or misdemeanor — whether natural-born or naturalized if there is a distinction — the citizen must face the consequences for that, but those consequences cannot include losing the citizenship itself.

If it’s possible for the government to revoke a person’s citizenship, then anyone who has a revokable citizenship doesn’t really have the same rights as people with non-revokable citizenship, because in practice the government can target that person for their legal but undesirable activities — for example dissident or opposition speech or protest — and find some minor violation to use as an excuse to revoke their citizenship and deport them.

If it weren’t encoded in the Constitution, the requirement to be natural-born as a qualification for the office of President would violate the equal opportunity laws protecting people from discrimination based on their national origin.

If we make a distinction between what rights and privileges are available to people, it should be based on their acts and commitments as adults and not based on where they were born or who they were born to.

If there is a process for becoming a citizen, both natural-born and immigrant residents should have to follow that process to obtain citizenship. That process should be named, but it should not be named “naturalization”. We should not assume the allegiance of someone merely because they were born here, as is evident by the number of traitors throughout history, such as Benedict Arnold who was born in the Connecticut Colony, or Robert Hanssen who was born in Illinois, or Saville Sax who was born in New York, and so on. If the United States ever loses its democratic principles to an authoritarian regime, it will most likely be caused by a natural-born elected President who subverts the institutions of democracy, someone who appears to be following the rules until it’s too late. Anything else and we’d have a nation of patriots fighting back instead of following along.

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