TO AMEND AN ACT TO PAROLE UNITED STATES
PRISONERS

MARCH 31, 1930.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. CHRISTOPHERSON, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 9674]

The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill H. R. 9674, after consideration reports the same favorably and recommends that the bill do pass.

This bill relates to the status of aliens sentenced to our Federal prisons. A prisoner who complies with the rules of the prison is eligible to parole some time previous to the expiration of his sentence, but the rules under which he is paroled require that he remain within the jurisdiction of the court. When an alien prisoner becomes eligible for parole he can not be paroled, because he can not at that time be deported. Therefore it is necessary to retain him in prison until the expiration of his sentence.

This bill will make it possible, at the time the prisoner becomes eligible to parole, for the prison authorities to surrender the alien prisoner to immigration officials for deportation, thus shortening the time the Government must retain him in custody. At present he must be retained until the expiration of his sentence, and he is then deported. The Department of Justice says of this bill:

This is important for us, as it will present an opportunity to reduce our greatly overcrowded prison population and save the Government a considerable amount of money through the deportation of prisoners as soon as they become eligible for release.

CITIZENSHIP AND NATURALIZATION OF MARRIED
WOMEN

MARCH 31, 1930.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed

Mr. CABLE, from the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization,
submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 10960]

The Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, to whom was
referred the bill (H. R. 10960) to amend the law relative to the
citizenship and naturalization of married women, and for other
purposes, reports it back to the House without amendment and
recommends that the bill do pass.

This bill would relieve certain native-born women who have married
aliens, of some unnecessary naturalization requirements growing out
of the expatriation act of March 2, 1907, and the woman's citizenship
act of September 22, 1922, and hardships arising out of the restrictive
immigration act of 1924.

Complete independent citizenship for women has not resulted from
the act of September 22, 1922. After more than seven years of
operation, the working of this legislation has developed certain more
or less technical difficulties, which H. R. 10960 proposes to remedy.

PROPOSED LEGISLATION IN THE NATURE OF PERFECTING AMENDMENTS
TO THE ACT OF SEPTEMBER 22, 1922

The native-born woman who married a foreigner on September 21,
1922, the day before that act became effective, and lost her American
citizenship, was not, by the 1922 act, automatically restored to citizen-
ship. She was given the right to repatriate herself by one year's
residence in the United States, filing her petition in a court of com-
petent jurisdiction, renouncing her doubtful allegiance to a country
to which, in fact, she owed no allegiance, and whose nationality was
thrust upon her without her consent, and by taking an oath of al-
legiance to the United States.

For example, Mrs. Emily Martin married an alien before the 1922
act and automatically lost her American citizenship. Later she

returned to this country, resided here a year, as required by the law, but was denied naturalization because she told the court she might reside outside of the United States with her husband and children, the judge ruling that her year's residence here was not of the permanent character required by law.

This bill (H. R. 10960) repeals the year's residence requirement, also the permanent character of the residence now required of a woman who has lost her citizenship, and also the necessity of her going through the regular naturalization proceeding as if she were a foreign-born alien. Mrs. Ruth Bryan Owen, a Member of this Congress, for example, married a British officer before 1922 and lost her American citizenship through no express desire of her own. To regain her American citizenship she was required to go through the same naturalization proceeding as a foreign-born alien, and as if she were not native born. Such a requirement is not a just treatment of native-born women who have lost their citizenship without their wish by the provisions of the 1907 act. A simple affirmative act of a native-born woman should be sufficient to regain citizenship lost through marriage.

If a native-born man marries an alien and resides abroad in her country the remainder of his life he does not lose his American citizenship. His children, although they are foreign born and never have been in the United States, likewise are American citizens, at least until they are 18 years of age. But if a native-born woman marries an alien and resides two years in her husband's country, or five years elsewhere abroad, she is presumed not to be an American citizen. The committee, realizing that there should not be one rule of law for men and another for women in the matter of expatriation, proposes in H. R. 10960 to repeal the provision in the 1922 act raising the presumption that native-born American women, who have been. married to aliens and have resided abroad, have lost their citizenship, by striking out the last three sentences of section 3 of the act of 1922, which the Department of State finds extremely difficult to administer.

There are native-born women whose American citizenship was lost by marriage, prior to the 1922 act, who can not now return to the United States to repatriate themselves because of our immigration quota law. For example, if an American woman, prior to the 1922 act, married an Italian, she, under the 1907 act, took the nationality of her husband. Under the 1924 quota law she must come within the Italian quota in order to enter the United States to be naturalized. Since the quota for Italy is already taken up by a long list of applicants, practically, she is not able to return to the United States for the purpose of repatriation, and we thus have excluded from the United States by an act of Congress, a native-born American woman who wants to repatriate herself.

The present law, classifying aliens entitled to "nonquota" status, now reads, in part, as follows:

SEC. 4 (f). A woman who was a citizen of the United States and who prior to September 22, 1922, lost her citizenship by reason of her marriage to an alien, but at the time of her application for an immigration visa is unmarried.

In other words, her foreign-born husband must either have died or there must have been a divorce, before she can reenter the United States outside the quota limitations. H. R. 10960 amends the above