http://www.oyez.org/issues/civil-rights/immigration-loss-citizenship/ U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, presented by The Oyez Project (www.oyez.org) en-us <p>Does Section 401(e) of the 1940 Nationality Act, revoking U.S. citizenship to persons who vote in other countries' elections, violate either the Fifth Amendment right to Due Process or the Fourteenth Amendment, under which naturalized citizens are granted national citizenship?</p><p>Yes. In a 5-to-4 decision, overruling Perez v. Brownell (356 US 44), the Court held that Congress has no general power to revoke American citizenship without consent. Noting the special bond between Americans and their government, a bond that protects every citizen against all manner of destruction of their rights, the Court held that only citizens themselves may voluntarily relinquish their citizenship. This sacred principle applies equally to natural and naturalized citizens. As such, Section 401(e) violated both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1966/1966_456/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1960/1960_22/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1960/1960_59/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1980/1980_79_5602/ <p>Did Section 401(j) of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, divesting U.S. citizens of their citizenship for remaining outside the United States during a time of war or national emergency in order to avoid the draft, violate the procedural safeguard of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments?</p><p>Yes. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court began by sustaining the validity of the Government's second action against Martinez since it addressed his lost of citizenship rather than revisiting his self-confessed draft evasion. The Court added, however, that although citizenship duties entail military service, the Government cannot divest citizens of their citizenship as a result of draft evasion alone. The imposition of such a drastic penalty, in the context of a reflexive statutory scheme, violates constitutional due process by denying subjects procedural safeguards such as the opportunity to experience a more incremental penal structure.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1961/1961_2/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1986/1986_86_228/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1957/1957_76/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1956/1956_19_2/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1957/1957_72/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1956/1956_44_2/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1960/1960_25/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1969/1969_24_2/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1961/1961_20/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1962/1962_251/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1963/1963_368/ <p>Did Section 401(g) of the amended 1940 Nationality Act (the "Act") allow for an unconstitutional punishment by authorizing the expatriation of a citizen convicted of wartime desertion?</p><p>Yes. After finding that Section 401(g) of the amended Act was penal in nature, since it punished convicted deserters with denationalization, the Court held that expatriation was barred by the Eighth Amendment as a cruel and unusual penal remedy. Citizenship, the Court stated, is not a license that expires upon misbehavior. Rather, it can only be voluntarily renounced by express language and, or, conduct. Since Trop did not involve himself in any way with a foreign state, so as to demonstrate disloyalty to the United States, his court martial conviction of desertion did not justify his expatriation.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1956/1956_70/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1960/1960_57/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1955/1955_35/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1955/1955_213/ <p>No details yet.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1979/1979_78_1143/