Supreme Court rejects American Samoan citizenship case
2016/06/15 Leave a comment
Lack of congressional statute, unlike Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Marianas, raising of course the question of why no statute:
American Samoans have no automatic claim to U.S. citizenship by birth despite living in a U.S. territory, according to a move by the Supreme Court on Monday.
The court declined to reconsider a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the Constitution does not confer citizenship on those born in American Samoa. The Supreme Court’s move effectively preserves the appellate court’s decision in the case as the last word.In the case, an American Samoan, Leneuoti Fia Fia Tuaua, petitioned the U.S. courts for citizenship under the clause of the Constitution that confers citizenship at birth to those born in the United States. American Samoa has been a U.S. territory since 1900.Those born in the other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Marianas — all get citizenship at birth, but that was determined by statute in Congress. No such statue exists for American Samoa.Tuaua was opposed in his quest by the American Samoan government itself, which argued that recognizing a right to citizenship at birth could complicated the legal structure in the territory.
The appeals court, in an unanimous ruling, agreed with the American Samoan government, emphasizing that the resident population has also avoided automatic U.S. citizenship.The opinion from a conservative panel of justices drew criticism for heavily drawing from a set of cases that have grown controversial. The so-called Insular Cases, a series of rulings at the turn of the 20th century, distinguished between U.S. territories destined for statehood, such as Hawaii and Alaska, and those that weren’t, like Puerto Rico and American Samoa. Those residents in territories not likely to become states were entitled to only “fundamental” rights, the cases say.But the cases have drawn criticism for being racially tinged and vestiges of colonialism, and the appellate court’s decision relying on them likewise drew flak.
Source: Supreme Court rejects American Samoan citizenship case – CNNPolitics.com
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Multicultural Meanderings 