Courts. Naturalization within the United States is a judicial function exercised since 1790 by various courts designated in statutes enacted by Congress under its constitutional power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. The authority of Congress to confer jurisdiction upon State courts was recognized at an early date, and under legislation prior to the current Act jurisdiction was vested not only in the District and former Circuit Courts of the United States, the Supreme and District Courts of the Territories and the District of Columbia, but also upon State courts of record.
Under the Acts of April 14, 1802, and May 26, 1824, only State courts having common-law jurisdiction, a clerk, and a seal could naturalize aliens. Since the Act of June 29, 1906, certain Territorial courts and all State courts have been required to have jurisdiction in actions at law or equity, or law and equity, in which the amount in controversy is unlimited; this restriction eliminated many courts formerly engaged in the naturalization process.
The District Court of Guam acquired naturalization jurisdiction upon the enactment of the Organic Act of August 1, 1950.
Alien’s residence in relationship to jurisdiction. (1) General. While the 1802 and 1824 statutes mentioned above required an alien seeking naturalization to be a resident of the State in which the court was located, residence within the jurisdiction of the court was not a statutory requirement in the jurisdictional sense. Under the legislation of June 29, 1906, jurisdiction of all naturalization courts, subject to exceptions specified in the law, was restricted to aliens residing within the judicial district of the court. As applied in Federal courts, this provision permitted a petition for naturalization to be filed in one division of a judicial district by a person who resided in another division of the same district.
A similar application of the last provision above was questioned in some instances when a petition was filed in one of several counties comprising a single judicial district of a State court. The identical provisions of the Nationality Act of 1940 and the current statute relating to the jurisdiction of State courts have resolved this issue by specifically eliminating the county of residence as a factor determinative of jurisdiction. Under both these enactments, residence within the jurisdiction of the naturalization court continued to be a statutory requirement for all courts, unless an exception is provided in the law.
Ordinarily, the constitution of a state or its statutes, or both, will determine the geographical area comprising the judicial district or circuit of its courts.
Departure from jurisdiction. A petitioner’s departure from the jurisdiction for the court subsequent to the filing of a petition for naturalization does not destroy the authority of the court to take final action thereon. In fact, prior to the current Act, the petition could be finally heard only by the court of original jurisdiction.
Nature of Congressional authority to provide for naturalization of aliens. Under its constitutional power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, Congress has the exclusive authority to enact legislation under which citizenship may be conferred upon aliens. From January 29, 1795, to the present, each statute has provided that aliens might be admitted to citizenship in the manner prescribed therein and not otherwise.
In some instances, derivative and naturalization provisions included in legislation of the past have no recognizable counterpart in the current statute. For example, a woman no longer derives citizenship by marriage. In addition, one who, because of misinformation, has erroneously exercised the privileges of citizenship in the honest belief that he possessed such status may no longer be naturalized on such basis.
Furthermore, provisions permitting the expeditious naturalization of former citizens who lost their nationality through the expatriation of a parent, or through the judicial cancellation of a parent’s naturalization have not been continued in the present Act. Similarly omitted are the provisions of the Act of July 2, 1940, which permitted a nondeclarant alien who entered the United States while under the age of 16 to a file a petition within one year after attaining majority.
Naturalization is a privilege which ripens into a right only upon compliance with the terms fixed by statute, and the courts have required a rigid conformity with the statutory standards.