Schneider v. Rusk (Schneider v Rusk)

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1964 United States Supreme Court case

Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163 (1964), was a 5–3 United States Supreme Court case that invalidated a law that stripped naturalized Americans of their citizenship as a result of extended or permanent residence abroad. Relying on the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment , the court ruled it generally was unconstitutional to treat naturalized and natural-born citizens differently.

Background

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Angelika Schneider, a German immigrant, came to the U.S. with her parents and became a United States citizen upon their naturalization at age 16. When she graduated from college, she moved back to Germany.

The State Department claimed Schneider had lost her U.S. citizenship in accordance with a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act , which revoked the citizenship of any naturalized citizen who returned to his or her country of birth and remained there for at least three years.

Opinion

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The Supreme Court held that, since no provision of the law stripped natural-born Americans of their citizenship as a result of extended or permanent residence abroad, it was unconstitutionally discriminatory to apply such a rule only to naturalized citizens.

The opinion, however, noted the natural-born-citizen clause of the U.S. Constitution permitted naturalized and natural-born citizens to be treated differently with respect to who is eligible to serve as the president of the United States: "The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the 'natural born' citizen is eligible to be President".