Cite as: 523 U. S. 420 (1998)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
tion or a court order.2 But if the father and not the mother held United States citizenship, then the child would qualify for United States citizenship only upon legitimation or adjudication of paternity during the child's minority. Furthermore, the child generally had to live in the United States for five years before the age of 21. The same residency requirement applied to children born abroad to married couples with only one United States citizen parent, whether that parent was the mother or the father. Nationality Act of 1940, §§ 201, 205, 54 Stat. 1138-1140.3
Subsequent legislation retained the gender lines drawn in the 1940 Act. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 made only one significant change regarding the citizenship of children born abroad out of wedlock. It removed the provision that a mother could pass on her nationality to her child only if the paternity of the child had not been established.4
2 Nationality and citizenship are not entirely synonymous; one can be a national of the United States and yet not a citizen. 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(22). The distinction has little practical impact today, however, for the only remaining noncitizen nationals are residents of American Samoa and Swains Island. See T. Aleinikoff, D. Martin, & H. Motomura, Immigration: Process and Policy 974-975, n. 2 (3d ed. 1995). The provision that a child born abroad out of wedlock to a United States citizen mother gains her nationality has been interpreted to mean that the child gains her citizenship as well; thus if the mother is not just a United States national but also a United States citizen, the child is a United States citizen. See 7 Gordon § 93.04[2][b], at 93-42; id., § 93.04[2][d][viii], at 93-49.
3 The provision granting citizenship to children born abroad out of wedlock applied retroactively; the provision granting citizenship to children born in wedlock did not. The 1934 Act, too, was nonretroactive. The net result was that a child born abroad out of wedlock to a United States citizen mother in 1933 or earlier had United States citizenship after the 1940 Act, but a child born in wedlock did not until 1994 when Congress enacted legislation making the 1934 Act retroactive. Pub. L. 103-416, Tit. I, § 101(a)(2), 108 Stat. 4306, codified at 8 U. S. C. § 1401(h).
4 The 1952 Act also provided that periods of service in the Armed Forces abroad could count toward satisfying the parental residency requirement in regard to a child born after January 13, 1941. Immigration and Nation-
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