This section shall not apply
with respect to any United States national.
Note
that the "United States" term as used in the above section refers to the federal United
States, also called the "federal zone".
Black’s
Law Dictionary further clarifies the distinction between a nation and a
society by clarifying the the differences between a national
government and a federal government, and keep in mind
that our government is called “federal government”:
So the
“United States*” the country is a “society” and a
“sovereignty” but not a “nation” under the law of nations, by the
Supreme Court’s own admission. Because
the supreme Court has ruled on this matter, it is now incumbent upon
each of us to always remember it and to apply it in all of our
dealings with the Federal Government.
If not, we lose our individual Sovereignty by default and the
Federal Government assumes jurisdiction over us.
So, while a sovereign Citizen will want to be the third
type of Citizen and on occasion the first, he would never want to be
the second.
A few people have disagreed with our position on
the “U.S. national” citizenship status of persons born in states of
the Union. These people
have sent us what appear to be contradictory information from websites
maintained by the federal government.
We thank them for taking the time to do so and we will devote
this section to rebutting all of their incorrect views.
Below are some of the arguments against our position on “U.S.
national” citizenship that we have received and enumerated to
facilitate rebuttal. We have boldfaced the relevant portions to make the
information easier to spot.
1.
U.S. Supreme Court, Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420
(1998):
"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], p. 93-42; id.,
§ 93.04[2][d][viii], p. 93-49."
[Miller v.
Albright, 523
U.S. 420 (1998)]
2.
Volume 7 of the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) section 1111.3
published by the Dept. of States at
http://foia.state.gov/REGS/Search.asp says the following
about nationals but not citizens of the United States:
c.
Historically, Congress, through statutes, granted U.S. nationality, but
not citizenship, to persons born or inhabiting territory acquired by the
United States through conquest or treaty. At one time or other natives
and certain other residents of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the
Philippines, Guam, and the Panama Canal Zone were U.S. non-citizen
nationals.
d.
Under current law (the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, as
amended through October 1994), only persons born in American Samoa and
the Swains Islands are U.S. nationals (Secs. 101(a)(29) and 308(1) INA).
3.
The Social Security Program Operations Manual System (POMS)
at http://policy.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/poms
says the following:
RS
02001.003 “U.S. Nationals”
Most of
the agreements refer to “U.S. nationals.”
The term
includes both U.S. citizens and persons who, though not citizens, owe
permanent allegiance to the United States. As noted in RS 02640.005
D., the only persons who are nationals but not citizens are American
Samoans and natives of Swain's Island.
4.
The USDA Food Stamp Service, website says at http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/rules/Memo/Support/02/polimgrt.htm:
Non-citizens
who qualify outright
There
are some immigrants who are immediately eligible for food stamps without
having to meet other immigrant requirements, as long as they meet the
normal food stamp requirements:
·
Non-citizen nationals (people born in American Samoa or
Swain’s Island).
·
American Indians born in Canada.
·
Members (born outside the U.S.) of Indian tribes under
Section 450b(e) of the Indian Self-Determination and Education
Assistance Act.
·
Members of Hmong or Highland Laotian tribes that helped
the U.S. military during the Vietnam era, and who are legally living in
the U.S., and their spouses or surviving spouses and dependent children.
The defects that our
detractors fail to realize about the above information are the following
points:
1.
The term “United States” as used in 8 U.S.C. §1408 means the federal zone based on the definitions provided in 8
U.S.C. §1101(a)(36), 8 U.S.C.
§1101(a)(38), and 8 CFR §215.1(f). See our Tax Deposition Questions, section 14,
questions 77 through 82 at the following address for more details: http://famguardian.org/TaxFreedom/Forms/Discovery/Deposition/Section
14.htm
2.
The federal government is not authorized under our Constitution
or under international law to prescribe the citizenship status of
persons who neither reside within nor were born within its territorial
jurisdiction. The only
thing that federal statutes can address are the status of persons who
either reside in, were born in, or resided in the past within the
territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
People born within states of the Union do not satisfy this
requirement and their citizenship status is determined under state and
not federal law. The quote below confirms this, keeping in mind that Title 8
of the U.S. Code qualifies as “legislation”:
“While states are not sovereign in true sense of term
but only quasi sovereign, yet in respect of all powers reserved to them
[including the citizenship status of people born but not naturalized
there] they are supreme and independent of federal government as that
government within its sphere is independent of the states.”
"It is no longer open to question that the
general government, unlike the states, Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247
U.S. 251, 275 , 38 S.Ct. 529, 3 A.L.R. 649, Ann.Cas.1918E
724, possesses no inherent power in respect of the internal affairs of
the states; and emphatically not with regard to legislation."
[Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298
U.S. 238, 56 S.Ct. 855 (1936)]
3.
The quotes of our detractors above recognize only one of
the four different ways of becoming a “national but not citizen
of the United States” described in 8 U.S.C.
§1408.
4.
Information derived from informal publications or advice of
employees of federal agencies are not admissible in a court of law as
evidence upon which to base a good faith belief.
The only basis for good-faith belief is a reading of the actual
statute or regulation that implements it.
The reason for this is that employees of the government are
frequently wrong, and frequently not only say wrong things, but in many
cases the people who said them had no lawful delegated authority to say
such things. See http://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/Articles/reliance.htm
for an excellent treatise from an attorney on why this is.
5.
People writing the contradictory information falsely
“presume” that the term “citizen” in a general sense that most
Americans use is the same as the term “citizen” as used in the
definition of “citizens and nationals of the United States” found in
8 U.S.C. §1401. In fact, we conclusively prove later in section 5.2.14 that
this is emphatically not the case.
A “citizen” as used in the Internal Revenue Code and most
federal statutes means a person born in a territory or possession of the
United States, and not in a state of the Union.
Americans born in states of the Union are a different type of
“citizen”, and we show in section 5.2.14 that these types of people
are “U.S. nationals” and not “citizens” or “U.S. citizens”
in the context of any federal statute.
We therefore challenge those who make this unwarranted
presumption to provide law and evidence proving us wrong on this point.
We request that you read section 4.11.10
before you prepare your rebuttal, because it clarifies several
important definitions that you might otherwise be inclined to overlook
that may result in misunderstanding.
6.
Whatever citizenship we enjoy we are entitled to abandon.
This is our right, as declared both by the Congress and the
Supreme Court. See Revised
Statutes, section 1999, page. 350, 1868 and section 4.11.9.
“citizens and nationals of the United States”
as defined in 8 U.S.C. §1401 have two statuses: “citizen”
and “national”. We are
entitled to abandon either of these two.
If we abandon nationality, then we automatically lose the
“citizen” part, because nationality is where we obtain our
allegiance. But if we
abandon the “citizen” part, then we still retain our nationality
under 8 U.S.C.
§1101(a)(22)(B). This is the approach we advocated earlier in section 4.11.6.1.
Because all citizenship must be consensual, then the government
must respect our ability to abandon those types of citizenship we find
objectionable. Consequently,
if either you or the government believe that you are a “citizen and
national of the United States” under 8 U.S.C.
§1401, then you are
entitled by law to abandon only the “citizen” portion and retain the
“national” portion, and 8 U.S.C. §1452 tells you how to have that choice recognized by the Department
of State.
Item 2 above is important, because it establishes
that the federal government has no authority to write law that
prescribes the citizenship status of persons born outside
of federal territorial jurisdiction and within the states
of the Union. The U.S.
Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 empowers Congress to write “an uniform Rule of
Naturalization”, but “naturalization” is only one of two
ways of acquiring citizenship. Birth
is the other way, and the states have exclusive jurisdiction and
legislative authority over the citizenship status of those people who
acquire their federal citizenship by virtue of birth within states of
the Union. Here is what the
Supreme Court said on this subject:
“The
power of naturalization, vested in congress by the constitution, is a
power to confer citizenship, not a power to take it away. 'A naturalized
citizen,' said Chief Justice Marshall, 'becomes a member of the society,
possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view
of the constitution, on the footing of a native. The constitution
does not authorize congress to enlarge or abridge those rights. The
simple power of the national legislature is to prescribe a uniform rule
of naturalization, and the exercise of this power exhausts it, so far as
respects the individual.”
[U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)]
The rules of comity prescribe whether or how this
citizenship is recognized by the federal government, and by reading 8
U.S.C. §1408, it is evident that the federal government chose not
directly recognize within Title 8 of the U.S.C. the citizenship status
of persons born within states of the Union to parents neither of whom
were “U.S. citizens” under 8 U.S.C. §1401 and neither of whom “resided” inside the federal zone
prior to the birth of the child. We
suspect that this is because not only does the Constitution not give
them this authority, but more importantly because doing so would spill
the beans on the true citizenship of persons born in states of the Union
and result in a mass exodus from the tax system by most Americans.
As we said, there are four ways identified in 8
U.S.C. §1408 that a person may be a “national but not citizen of the
United States” at birth. We
have highlighted the section that our detractors are ignoring, and which
we quote frequently on our treatment of the subject of citizenship.
TITLE
8 > CHAPTER
12 > SUBCHAPTER
III > Part
I > Sec. 1408.
Sec. 1408.
- Nationals but not citizens of the United States at birth
Unless
otherwise provided in section 1401
of this title, the following shall be nationals, but not citizens, of
the United States at birth:
(1)
A person born in an outlying possession of the United
States on or after the date of formal acquisition of such possession;
(2)
A person born outside the United States and
its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are nationals, but not
citizens, of the United States, and have had a residence in the United
States, or one of its outlying possessions prior to the birth of such
person;
(3)
A person of unknown parentage found in an outlying
possession of the United States while under the age of five years, until
shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have
been born in such outlying possession; and
(4)
A person born outside the United States and its outlying
possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a
national, but not a citizen, of the United States who, prior to the
birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its
outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than
seven years in any continuous period of ten years -
(A)
during which the national parent was not outside the United
States or its outlying possessions for a continuous period of more than
one year, and
(B)
at least five years of which were after attaining the age of
fourteen years.
The
proviso of section 1401(g) of this title shall apply to the national parent
under this paragraph in the same manner as it applies to the citizen
parent under that section
Subsections (1), (3), and (4) above deal with
persons who are born in outlying possessions of the United States, and
Swain’s Island and American Samoa would certainly be included within
these subsections. These
people would be the people who are addressed by the information cited by
our detractors from federal websites above.
Subsection (2), however, deals with persons who are born outside
of the federal United States (federal zone) to parents who
are “U.S. nationals” and who resided at one time in the federal
United States. Anyone born
overseas to American parents is a “non-citizen U.S. national” under
this section and this status is one that is not recognized in any of the
cites provided by our detractors but is recognized by the law itself.
Since states of the Union are outside the federal
United States and outside the “United States” used in Title 8, then
parents born in states of the Union satisfy the requirement for
“national but not citizen of the United States” status found in 8
U.S.C. §1408(2).
One of the complaints we get from our readers is
something like the following:
“Let’s
assume you’re right and that 8 U.S.C.
§1408(2) prescribes the
citizenship status of persons born in a state of the Union. The problem I have with that view is that ‘United States’
means the federal zone in that section, and subsection (2) requires that
the parents must reside within the ‘United States’ prior to the
birth of the child. This
means they must have ‘resided’ in the federal zone before the child
was born, and most people don’t satisfy that requirement.”
Let us explain why the
above concern is unfounded. According
to 8 U.S.C.
§1408(2), the parents must also reside in the federal
United States prior to the birth of the child.
We assert that most people born in states of the Union do in fact
meet this requirement and we will now explain why.
They can meet this requirement by any one of the following ways:
1.
Serving in the military or residing on a military base or
occupied territory.
2.
Filing an IRS form 1040 (not a 1040NR, but a 1040).
The federal 1040 form says “U.S. individual” at the top left.
A “U.S. individual” is defined in 26 CFR §1.1441-1(c )(3) as either an “alien” residing within the federal zone or a
“nonresident alien” with income from within the federal zone.
Since “nonresident aliens” file the 1040NR form, the only
thing that a person who files a 1040 form can be is a “resident
alien” as defined in 26 U.S.C.
§7701(b) and 26 CFR §1.1-1(a)(2)(ii) or a “citizen” residing abroad who attaches a form 2555 to
the 1040. See section
5.2.11 for further details on this if you are curious.
Consequently, being a “resident alien” qualifies you as a
“resident”. You are
not, in fact a resident because you didn’t physically occupy the
federal zone for the year covered by the tax return, but if the
government is going to treat you as a “resident” by accepting and
processing your tax return, then they have an obligation to treat either
you or your parents as “residents” in all respects, including those
related to citizenship. To
do otherwise would be inconsistent and hypocritical.
3.
Spending time in a military hospital.
4.
Visiting federal property or a federal reservation within a state
routinely as a contractor working for the federal government.
5.
Working for the federal government on a military reservation or
inside of a federal area.
6.
Sleeping in a national park.
7.
Spending time in a federal courthouse.
The reason why items 3 through 7 above satisfy the
requirement to be a “resident” of the federal United States is
because the term “resident” is nowhere defined in Title 8 of the
U.S. Code, and because of the definition of “resident” in Black’s
Law Dictionary:
“Resident.
Any person who occupies a dwelling within the State, has a
present intent to remain within the State for a period of time, and
manifests the genuineness of that intent by establishing an ongoing
physical presence within the State together with indicia that his
presence within the State is something other than merely transitory in
nature.” [Black’s
Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, p. 1309]
The key word in the above is “permanent”, which
is defined as it pertains to citizenship in 8 U.S.C.
§1101(a)(31) below:
TITLE
8 > CHAPTER
12 > SUBCHAPTER
I > Sec. 1101
Sec.
1101. - Definitions
(31)
The term ''permanent'' means a relationship of continuing or
lasting nature, as distinguished from temporary, but a relationship may
be permanent even though it is one that may be dissolved eventually at
the instance either of the United States or of the individual, in
accordance with law.
Since Title 8 does not define the term
“lasting” or “ongoing” or “transitory”, we referred to the
regular dictionary, which says:
“lasting:
existing or continuing a long while: ENDURING.”
[Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary, 1983, ISBN
0-87779-510-X, p. 675]
“ongoing:
1. being actually in
process 2: continuously moving forward; GROWING” [Webster’s Ninth
Collegiate Dictionary, 1983, ISBN 0-87779-510-X, p. 825]
“transitory:
1: tending to pass away: not persistent
2: of brief duration: TEMPORARY syn see TRANSIENT.”
No period of time is specified in order to meet the
criteria for “permanent”, so even if we lived there a day or a few
hours, we were still there “permanently”.
The Bible also says in Matt. 6:26-31 that we should not be
anxious or presumptuous about tomorrow and take each day as a new day.
The last verse in that sequence says:
“Therefore
do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about
its own trouble.” [Matt.
6:31, Bible, NKJV]
In fact, we are not allowed to be presumptuous at
all, which means we aren’t allowed to assume or intend anything about
the future. Our future is
in the hands of a sovereign Lord, and we exist by His good graces alone.
“Come
now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a
city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; whereas
you do not know what will happen tomorrow.
For what is your life? It
is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and
do this or that.’ But now
you boast in your arrogance. All
such boasting is evil.” [James
4:13-16, Bible, NKJV]
“But the
person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a
stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off
from among his people.” [Numbers 15:30, Bible, NKJV]
Consequently, the Christian’s definition of
“permanent” is anything that relates to what we intend for today
only and does not include anything that might happen
starting tomorrow or at any time in the future beyond tomorrow.
Being presumptuous about the future is “boastful” and
“evil”, according to the Bible!
The future is uncertain and our lives are definitely not
“permanent” in God’s unlimited sense of eternity.
Therefore, wherever we are is where we “intend” to
permanently reside as Christians.
Even if you don’t like the above analysis of why
most Americans born in states of the Union are “nationals but not
citizens of the United States” under 8 U.S.C.
§1408(2), we still
explained above that you have the right to abandon only the
“citizen” portion and retain the “national” portion of any
imputed dual citizenship status under 8 U.S.C.
§1401. We also show you how to have that choice formally recognized
bye the U.S. Department of State in section 2.5.3.13 of our
Sovereignty Forms and Instructions Manual under
the authority of 8 U.S.C.
§1452, and we know people who have
successfully employed this strategy, so it must be valid.
Furthermore, even if you don’t want to believe
that any of the preceding discussion is valid, we also explained that
the federal government cannot directly prescribe the citizenship status
of persons born within states of the Union under international law. To illustrate this fact, consider the following extension of
a popular metaphor:
“If a
tree fell in the forest, and Congress refused to pass a law recognizing
that it fell and forced the agencies in the executive branch to refuse
to acknowledge that it fell because doing so would mean an end to income
tax revenues, then did it really fall?”
The answer to the above questions is emphatically
“yes”. We said that the
rules of comity prevail in that case the federal government recognizing
the citizenship status of those born in states of the Union.
But what indeed is their status under federal law?
8 U.S.C.
§1101(a)(21) defines
a “national” as:
TITLE
8 > CHAPTER
12 > SUBCHAPTER
I > Sec. 1101.
Sec.
1101. - Definitions
(21)
The term ''national'' means a person owing permanent allegiance
to a state.
If you were born in a state of the Union, you are a
“national of the United States” because the “state” that you
have allegiance to is the confederation of states called the “United
States”. As further
confirmation of this fact, if “naturalization” is defined as the
process of conferring “nationality” under 8 U.S.C.
§1101(a)(23),
and “expatriation” is defined as the process of abandoning
“nationality and allegiance” by the Supreme Court in Perkins v.
Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939), then “nationality” is the key that
determines citizenship status. What
makes a person a “national” is “allegiance” to a state.
The only type of citizenship which carries with it the notion of
“allegiance” is that of “U.S. national”, as shown in 8 U.S.C.
§1101(a)(22)(B). You will not find “allegiance” mentioned anywhere in
Title 8 in connection with those persons who claim to be “citizens and
nationals of the United States” as defined in 8 U.S.C.
§1401:
TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER
I > Sec. 1101.
Sec.
1101. - Definitions
(a) (22)
The term ''national of the United States'' means
(A) a
citizen of the United States, or
(B) a
person who, though not a citizen of the United States, owes permanent [but
not necessarily exclusive] allegiance to the United States.
People born in states of the Union can and most
often do have allegiance to the confederation of states called the
“United States” just as readily as people who were born on federal
property, and the federal government under the rules of comity should be
willing to recognize that allegiance without demanding
that such persons surrender their sovereignty, become tax slaves, and
come under the exclusive jurisdiction of federal statutes by pretending
to be people who live in the federal zone.
Not doing so would be an injury and oppression of their rights,
and would be a criminal conspiracy against rights, because remember,
people who live inside the federal zone have no rights, by the admission
of the Supreme Court in Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901):
TITLE
18 > PART
I > CHAPTER
13 > Sec. 241.
Sec. 241.
- Conspiracy against rights
If two or
more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any
person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in
the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him
by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his
having so exercised the same; or
If two or
more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of
another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment
of any right or privilege so secured -
They shall
be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or
both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this
section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap,
aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse,
or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be
sentenced to death
It would certainly constitute a conspiracy against
rights to force or compel a person to give up their true citizenship
status in order to acquire any kind of citizenship recognition from a
corrupted federal government. The
following ruling by the Supreme Court plainly agrees with these
conclusions:
“It
would be a palpable incongruity to strike down an act of state
legislation which, by words of express divestment, seeks to strip the
citizen of rights guaranteed by the federal Constitution, but to uphold
an act by which the same result is accomplished under the guise of a
surrender of a right in exchange for a valuable privilege which the
state threatens otherwise to withhold.
It is not necessary to challenge the proposition that, as a
general rule, the state, having power to deny a privilege altogether,
may grant it upon such conditions as it sees fit to impose.
But the power of the state in that respect is not unlimited, and
one of the limitations is that it may not impose conditions which
require the relinquishment of Constitutional rights.
If the state may compel the surrender of one constitutional right
as a condition of its favor, it may, in like manner, compel a surrender
of all. It is inconceivable
that guaranties embedded in the Constitution of the United States may
thus be manipulated out of existence.”
[Frost v. Railroad
Commission, 271 U.S.
583; 46 S.Ct. 605 (1926)]