Cite as: 523 U. S. 420 (1998)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
petitioner's 21st birthday, and there is no indication in the record that they had any contact whatsoever before she applied for a United States passport. Given the size of the American military establishment that has been stationed in various parts of the world for the past half century, it is reasonable to assume that this case is not unusual. In 1970, when petitioner was born, about 683,000 service personnel were stationed in the Far East, 24,000 of whom were in the Philippines. U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States 381 (99th ed. 1978). Of all Americans in the military at that time, only one percent were female.17
These figures, coupled with the interval between conception and birth and the fact that military personnel regularly return to the United States when a tour of duty ends, suggest that Congress had legitimate concerns about a class of children born abroad out of wedlock to alien mothers and to American servicemen who would not necessarily know about, or be known by, their children. It was surely reasonable when the INA was enacted in 1952, and remains equally reasonable today, for Congress to condition the award of citizenship to such children on an act that demonstrates, at a minimum, the possibility that those who become citizens will develop ties with this country—a requirement that performs a meaningful purpose for citizen fathers but normally would be superfluous for citizen mothers.
It is of course possible that any child born in a foreign country may ultimately fail to establish ties with its citizen parent and with this country, even though the child's citizen parent has engaged in the conduct that qualifies the child for citizenship. A citizen mother may abandon her child before
17 Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Background Study, Use of Women in the Military 5 (2d ed. 1978). The proportion of military personnel who were female in 1970 had dropped from a high of 2.2 percent in 1945. Id., at 3. Since 1970, the proportion has steadily increased to its present level of about 13 percent. See Dept. of Defense, Selected Manpower Statistics 23 (1996).
439
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