Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) saw the Supreme Court rule that the government cannot involuntarily remove someone's US citizenship. The plaintiff was a Jewish man named Beys Afroyim, who was born Ephraim Bernstein in the Russian Empire in 1893 and emigrated to the United States when he was 19. Bernstein trained to be an artist and acquired US citizenship in 1926; among his works were portraits of George Bernard Shaw, Theodore Dreiser, and Arnold Schoenberg. He moved to Israel with his wife and former artistic student shortly after its foundation in 1948 and changed his name to the Hebrew Beys Afroyim.Afroyim and his wife separated in 1960 and he went back to the US only to find that his citizenship was revoked as he'd voted in the 1951 Israeli general elections; the Nationality Act of 1940 made him considered legally an agent of a foreign government by participating in its political processes. He protested that he didn't actually vote in the the '51 elections and only went to a polling place in Tel-Aviv to make artistic sketches of voters lined up at the ballot box. This appeal was rejected, so he filed suit in US District Court in New York City. The appeal included an admission that he did in fact vote in Israel but that the Nationality Act violated the 5th and 14th Amendments. The district judge rejected Afroyim's appeal on the grounds that he'd not only violated the Nationality Act but that it was upheld by the Supreme Court in Perez v. Brownell (1958).
He appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The court upheld the district court ruling 3-0, noting that the district judge's opinion on the case was well-written and scholarly. One judge questioned the validity of Perez and thought Afroyim might get a different result if he'd worded his appeal differently, but reluctantly voted along with his two colleagues. Afroyim then appealed to the Supreme Court on the grounds that the Constitution granted no such power to Congress to strip anyone of his US citizenship.ACLU chairman and former INS general counsel Edward Ennis presented the oral arguments in the case. He backed up Afroyim's claim that the Constitution didn't allow the government to revoke anyone's citizenship and also denounced the reasoning used in Perez. He argued that persons with US citizenship had participated in the Saarland plebiscite in 1935 without raising any eyebrows. Current INS general counsel Charles Gordon presented the oral arguments for the government. Although experienced in immigration law, Gordon fumbled the ball when he let it slip that Afroyim had also voted in the 1955 and '59 Israeli general elections, neither brought up in the written briefs for the case.Afroyim nonetheless officially only acknowledged voting in 1951, which was also only three years into Israel's statehood when the infant nation as yet lacked a nationality law and voter eligibility had been based on residence instead of citizenship. He did acquire Israeli citizenship later on and voted in subsequent elections but his attorneys sidestepped this matter and focused only on whether or not voting in another country's election could result in the loss of US citizenship.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Afroyim. Justice Black wrote the majority opinion for the case which was simple--there was no statutory authority in the Constitution to involuntarily remove a person's citizenship and repudiating Perez. To allow Congress such a power was arbitrary and tyrannous and had the potential to be used as a political weapon against anyone the government disliked. Justice Harlan wrote the dissenting opinion, taking the "Congress can do anything not expressly prohibited to it" viewpoint and argued that the Constitution never said the government can't strip someone of their citizenship, that Perez was correctly decided, and anyone who participated in the political process of a foreign government could have their citizenship revoked if doing so harmed US interests.The later Rogers v. Belle (1971) case saw the Court make the distinction between those granted citizenship via the citizenship clause of the Constitution and those granted citizenship via an immigration statute, however the statute in question was repealed in 1978.Beys Afroyim, having won his case, spent the remainder of his life dividing his time between Staten Island and Safed, Israel. He died in New York City on May 19, 1984.
>>17440847>Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) saw the Supreme Court rule that the government cannot involuntarily remove someone's US citizenship. The plaintiff was a Jewish man named Beys Afroyim, who was born Ephraim Bernstein in the Russian Empire in 1893 and emigrated to the United States when he was 19. Bernstein trained to be an artist and acquired US citizenship in 1926; among his works were portraits of George Bernard Shaw, Theodore Dreiser, and Arnold Schoenberg. He moved to Israel with his wife and former artistic student shortly after its foundation in 1948 and changed his name to the Hebrew Beys Afroyim.>Afroyim and his wife separated in 1960 and he went back to the US only to find that his citizenship was revoked as he'd voted in the 1951 Israeli general elections; the Nationality Act of 1940 made him considered legally an agent of a foreign government by participating in its political processes.why would you even post this thread, OP? absolutely nothing good is going to come out of it.
BAN ALL ISRAELI DUAL CITIZENSHIPS NOW
sneed
>>17441650I don't think it's hard to believe the Citizenship Act was a temp wartime measure to combat Nazi agents and it was obsolete after that.
