|
|
The San Juan Star
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT FIXES CITIZENSHIP SNAFU
EDITORIAL
(06/07/98, Copyright © 1998 The San Juan Star)
The U.S. State Department has reversed its Nov. 22, 1995 issuance of a loss of nationality certificate to independence activist Juan Mari Brás. The about-face, detailed in a June 3 letter to the Mayaguez lawyer, is a tacit acknowledgment the Department erred in its earlier decision to grant Mari Brás' petition to renounce his U.S. citizenship.
The State Department cited Mari Brás' own behavior after renouncing his U.S. citizenship in its reversal. The letter, signed by Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Katherine Peterson, noted that when Mari Brás took his Oath of Renunciation in 1994, he acknowledged that he would become an alien with respect to laws and procedures regarding entry and control of aliens. Mari Brás' subsequent decision to continue living in Puerto Rico without registering as an alien showed he continued to exercise the privileges of U.S. citizenship, which is inconsistent with renunciation, the Department declared.
The State Department reversal is an embarrassment to a bureaucracy that prides itself on its professionalism. Nonetheless, it should clear up confusion created by Mari Brás' claims of a sovereign Puerto Rican citizenship and by the commonwealth Supreme Court's 1997 decision which placed Mari Brás above the law requiring U.S. citizenship to vote here.
See Related Articles
|
