466
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
Senate and House Reports on the Act stated that the change was made "to establish complete equality between American men and women in the matter of citizenship for themselves and for their children." S. Rep. No. 865, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1934); accord, H. R. Rep. No. 131, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1933); see generally Orfield, The Citizenship Act of 1934, 2 U. Chi. L. Rev. 99, 100-106 (1935). Congress again did not speak of children born out of wedlock, but the 1934 Act "was construed as authorizing transmission of American citizenship by descent by an American citizen mother to a child born abroad . . . out of wedlock under the same conditions as a child born in wedlock." 7 Gordon § 93.04[2][b], at 93-42; see also id., § 93.04[2][d][iii], at 93-46.
The 1934 Act's equal respect for the citizenship stature of mothers and fathers of children born abroad did not remain unmodified. Six years later, Congress passed the Nationality Act of 1940, which replaced the Revised Statutes' single provision on citizenship of children born abroad with an array of provisions that turned on whether the child was born in an outlying possession of the United States, whether one or both of the child's parents were United States citizens, and whether the child was born in or out of wedlock. The 1940 Act preserved Congress' earlier recognition of parental equality in regard to children born in wedlock, but established a different regime for children born out of wedlock, one that disadvantaged United States citizen fathers and their children.
Under the 1940 Act, if the mother of the child born abroad out of wedlock held United States citizenship and previously had resided in the country or in a United States possession, the child gained the mother's nationality from birth, provided the child's paternity was not established by legitimaAct, passed the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization but proceeded no further. See H. R. Rep. No. 1185, 66th Cong., 3d Sess., 1 (1921).
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