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American Nationals vs Citizens

Ranb

Penultimate Amazing
Ranb
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Federal judge rules American Samoans are US citizens by birth
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/politics/american-samoa-citizenship/index.html
"This court is not imposing 'citizenship by judicial fiat.' The action is required by the mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment as construed and applied by Supreme Court precedent," wrote Judge Clark Waddoups in the US District Court for the District of Utah.
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Read more; https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/poli...s-citizenship-for-american-samoans/index.html

American Samoans living in Utah brought the suit in 2018, arguing that being "non-citizen nationals," instead of US citizens closed the door to some employment opportunities and didn't allow them to vote, among other rights afforded to US citizens.
Their passports also include a disclaimer that reads: "The bearer is a United States national and not a United States citizen."

"It doesn't feel very good when the federal government says you're American, but not quite the same as other Americans, just a little bit different. Just being able to say they're real American citizens, I think that goes a long way, in addition to being able to vote," Weare said.
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Sounds reasonable.

Were many Hong Kong residents were able to obtain Brithish citizenship prior to the handover in 1997?

Ranb
 
Ranb said:
Federal judge rules American Samoans are US citizens by birth
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/politics/american-samoa-citizenship/index.html

Read more; https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/poli...s-citizenship-for-american-samoans/index.html


Sounds reasonable.

Were many Hong Kong residents were able to obtain Brithish citizenship prior to the handover in 1997?

Ranb
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Seems to me if Puerto Ricans are full US citizens,and Puerto Rico is not a state, the same should apply to Samoans.
People in US Territories should all be Full Citizens, or we should give them their Independence. Don't think the US should have "Subjects".
 
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dudalb said:
Seems to me if Puerto Ricans are full US citizens,and Puerto Rico is not a state, the same should apply to Samoans.
People in US Territories should all be Full Citizens, or we should give them their Independence. Don't think the US should have "Subjects".
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To vastly over simplify it the United States has four different kinds of "Territories" but isn't exactly all that precise about it.

Category 1: Organized, Unincorporated. Self governing and the US Constitution doesn't fully apply. That's Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Island, and the US Virgin Islands. These people are full American Citizens but can't directly vote for President and have not voting Representation in Congress.

Category 2: Unorganized, Unincorporated. Numerous islands with no permanent inhabitants, usually either claimed by American because they were covered in bird poop or were big enough to put an airstrip on during WWII. Unorganized means there is no local government but that's because there's no people to govern or do the governing.

Category 3: Unorganized, Incorporated. One, the Palmarya Atoll. This one is really weird because it's an uninhabited nature reserve but technically the United States Constitution applies there.

Category 4: Organized, Incorporated. This one is currently empty. It's basically where territories go while being incorporated into states. Hawaii and Alaska where this for a little while before they became states.

America Samoa is weird because it's not in any of those categories. It's in this weird limbo land for no reason other then there's never been any political push to change it.
 
There was a podcast episode about this from Radiolab. I'll see if I can find it.

Not all American Samoans are in favor of this, if memory serves. Some of them don't want to be American citizens.
 
Here it is. You can listen or read the transcript:

Americanish

In 1903 the US Supreme Court refused to say that Isabel González was a citizen of the United States. Then again, they said, she wasn’t a exactly an immigrant either. And they said that the US territory of Puerto Rico, Isabel’s home, was “foreign to the United States in a domestic sense.” Since then, the US has cleared up at least some of the confusion about US territories and the status of people born in them.

But, more than a hundred years later, there is still a US territory that has been left in limbo: American Samoa. It is the only place on earth that is US soil, but people who are born there are not automatically US citizens. When we visit American Samoa, we discover that there are some pretty surprising reasons why many American Samoans prefer it that way.
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dudalb said:
Seems to me if Puerto Ricans are full US citizens,and Puerto Rico is not a state, the same should apply to Samoans.
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It's not that simple. The laws of Puerto Rico, as with the states, is fully subservient in all ways to federal laws. But that's not actually the case with American Samoa. In particular, American Samoa actually gets to control its own immigration policy. It doesn't need to follow federal immigration rules. If Samoans are going to be citizens like other non-state territory residents (Puerto Rico and Washington DC, for example), then that independence can't remain. I don't think their land ownership laws, which restricts non-ethnically Samoans from owning land, would survive constitutional scrutiny either.

In other words, Samoans gain something by having the relationship at arms length, something a lot of them would be loathe to give up. But I don't see how those things can survive if Samoans are to be US citizens by birthright.
 
Ziggurat said:
It's not that simple. The laws of Puerto Rico, as with the states, is fully subservient in all ways to federal laws. But that's not actually the case with American Samoa. In particular, American Samoa actually gets to control its own immigration policy. It doesn't need to follow federal immigration rules. If Samoans are going to be citizens like other non-state territory residents (Puerto Rico and Washington DC, for example), then that independence can't remain. I don't think their land ownership laws, which restricts non-ethnically Samoans from owning land, would survive constitutional scrutiny either.

In other words, Samoans gain something by having the relationship at arms length, something a lot of them would be loathe to give up. But I don't see how those things can survive if Samoans are to be US citizens by birthright.
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Yeah, those are some of the main reasons mentioned in the Radiolab episode too. They have, apparently, some weird laws there that probably are unconstitutional under the US constitution. One of them is that you have to be at least half Samoan to own property there. There are tribal chiefs there that sort of rule their villages like tiny dictators.

And Chief Mayaba explained that they have a curfew in the Village of Leone on Sundays at 6:00 PM. For 15 minutes, everyone has to stop what they're doing and pray, or meditate.

Jad Abumrad: Wait. That's the law? This is-

Julia Longoria: Yeah, I mean. It's, it's not quite law, but it is the rule in this village and some others, and it is enforced.
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Ranb said:
Federal judge rules American Samoans are US citizens by birth
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/politics/american-samoa-citizenship/index.html

Read more; https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/poli...s-citizenship-for-american-samoans/index.html


Sounds reasonable.

Were many Hong Kong residents were able to obtain Brithish citizenship prior to the handover in 1997?

Ranb
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Quite a few. However, the British Government came up with a special category called British National Overseas for residents of Hong Kong. That status didn't carry the same status as British citizenship. They had to apply for US visas to come to the United States and could not emigrate at will to the UK like almost everyone else living under direct British government.
 
Rather odd that they would have this problem. The average American may not ever meet somebody from Samoa. But if you serve in the military you probably will meet half a dozen or so with in a year. Seems that just about every adult male Samoan fit enough to serve in the military does.

In one sense they join up because there is not much happening economically in Samoa. But when asked they will point to WW II where the US promised that if there was a base there the Japanese would never be able to take the islands. They all know about it and it plays a role in their local culture.
 
Doubt said:
Rather odd that they would have this problem. The average American may not ever meet somebody from Samoa. But if you serve in the military you probably will meet half a dozen or so with in a year. Seems that just about every adult male Samoan fit enough to serve in the military does.

In one sense they join up because there is not much happening economically in Samoa. But when asked they will point to WW II where the US promised that if there was a base there the Japanese would never be able to take the islands. They all know about it and it plays a role in their local culture.
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They should probably push for fresh assurances vs China. I don't think Japan is much of a threat to Samoa these days.
 
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