Talk:Wayne M. Collins

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"Nixon repealed the renunciation law in 1971"

I see the source cited (the Tule Lake history page) claims that in 1971, Nixon repealed the law that was passed to allow renunciations by interned Japanese Americans. I suspect that whoever wrote that source may have been thinking of Title II of the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950; Collins & Bay Area Japanese Americans were heavily involved in the fight for repeal, and Nixon finally signed the repeal into law on September 25, 1971 (the Non-Detention Act). You can read more about the history of that here, for starters.

The actual renunciation law, the Renunciation Act of 1944 (Public Law 78-405, 58 Stat. 677), has never been repealed. Since it's quite short, let me quote the relevant portion (you can download the whole of Statutes at Large Vol. 58 here, ~50MB):

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 401 of the Nationality Act of 1940 (54 Stat. 1168 ; 8 U.S.C. 801) is amended by substituting a semicolon for the period after the last word in subsection (h) of such section, adding the word "or" to the said subsection, and adding a new subsection to be known as subsection (i) and to read as follows:

"(i) making in the United States a formal written renunciation of nationality in such form as may be prescribed by, and before such officer as may be designated by, the Attorney General, whenever the United States shall be in a state of war and the Attorney General shall approve such renunciation as not contrary to the interests of national defense."

That whole section got pasted verbatim into the Immigration and Nationality Acts of 1952 and 1965, and stands today in precisely the same form, unrepealed, at 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(6).

Incidentally, there is an attempt in the latest immigration reform bill (at § 3713) to repeal that subsection. for reasons entirely unrelated to redress for Japanese Americans: a convicted sex offender tried to renounce citizenship under that law in the early 2000s, and went on to win a lawsuit against the US government when it refused to process his renunciation [1] (hence why the repeal section is entitled "Preventing criminals from renouncing citizenship during wartime"). Cheers, quant18 (talk) 15:09, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]